Mercenary
by Cheah
Summary: Raccoon City's death throes through the eyes of an Umbrella mercenary. M for violence, blood and gore, and swearing.
1. Prologue

Mercenary

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Resident Evil, or Capcom for that matter. Except for the games. Some, anyway.

'Cry, "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war!'

William Shakespeare, _Julius Caesar_

Prologue: Insertion

September 29th, 1998

2000 hours

"ETA one minute!" the pilot called over the intercom, his voice almost drowned out by the thundering rotor blades of the Bell JetRanger we were in.

I looked out of the Perspex window, and into a city ravaged by death.

Raccoon City was hued in black and red from where I was, black from death, and red from fresh blood. I couldn't make out any details on the ground, but I knew that the other Umbrella mercs below couldn't be having an easy time. The moon was full and pale, an omen of death.

Umbrella had five companies in its UCS (Umbrella Corporate Security) force: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo. Three days ago, Echo was sent in to sweep the city and rescue whatever civilians they could. Thirty minutes later, Umbrella's Tactical Operations Command (TOC) received SOS calls from the men on the ground, detailing the horrors they'd seen and fought. Delta was inserted into the city soon after. Two days ago, the situation had deteriorated to somewhere near 'beyond salvage', prompting the top brass to order Charlie in. Yesterday, Bravo was sucked into the mire of Raccoon City, just to add more names to the final body count under the pretext of a noble mission. Their last report was that of the rescue helicopter crashing. Now, the powers that be decided to throw their last company into the fuckup that was Operation Mad Jackal, and wanted us to reinforce whoever's still alive, and extract anybody we can from the city.

Before this whole mess started, 120 mercenaries from another force were sent in three days ago. The fact that Echo followed them in some hours later was proof enough that something was wrong.

Like we'd have a snowball's chance in hell of even surviving. At the end of the mission briefing, a mercenary stood up and shouted "Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you!" to the full-bird colonel who gave the briefing, echoing our sentiments. The rest of the men followed suit before leaving. That the colonel didn't stop him was proof enough that most, if not all, were going to die.

I am reminded of two lines from Lord Alfred Tennyson's _The Charge of the Light Brigade_. 'Their's not to reason why/Their's but to do and die.' How appropriate. Our only hope was to work together, and maybe not even that.

I glanced about the tight cabin.

Lieutenant Frank Anderson, the team 'leader', was in front of me. I didn't know anything about him. None of us did. He was assigned to us a day before Umbrella sent in their mercenaries into RC. He was a big man, about six feet five, in his early thirties. His pale skin, white hair, and red eyes marked him as an albino. His hair was about as long as that of a businessman; like all of us. We had different backgrounds, but we all use US Army ranks.

He was armed with an M4A1 carbine fitted with a 1.5x reflex sight. Judging by the way he was holding his carbine, he was left-handed. The M4A1 was developed in 1994 for the United States Special Operations Command as a modification of the M4. It has a flattop receiver and a Picatinny accessory rail on top instead of the standard carrying handle, and fires in full automatic when set to 'AUTO', as opposed to the M4's 3-round burst fire when set to that fire option. It was reliable, accurate, and generally among the best firearms in the world. He also had a pistol in a shoulder holster, but I couldn't make it out.

A massive ball of flame appeared suddenly on the left of the helicopter, quickly forming into a mushroom cloud of scarlet. A high-pressure front shot out from it, briefly knocking the helicopter about, as a roar passed through the helicopter.

"Jesus Christ! What the fuck was that? A nuke?" the man on my left screamed, his bass voice echoing throughout the cargo compartment.

He was Sergeant Howard Thompson, a large (6'4"), muscular African American. He had a beard so thick that he had to shave it twice a day. He had short, curly black hair that matched his black eyes. He was also prone to bouts of swearing when confronted with unusually stressful situations.

A former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, he excelled in the use of heavy and support weaponry. As such, he was carrying a Mark 46 Mod 0 machinegun. It was a modified M249 developed for the US SOCOM. It had an accessory rail, a different stock, and no magazine feed option to save weight. His machinegun was fitted with a standard-issue 200 round belt that was stored in a box.

"If it were, we'd be dead," the mercenary in front of him said, head down, eyes closed, and left hand loosely gripping his rifle. He wasn't sleeping, or even pretending to, merely powering down and conserving energy.

He was Sergeant Patrick Boehm, the team sniper. He was 5'8", about as tall as I am. He had 20/10 vision and a short neck, traits that genius snipers possess. He was blond-haired and blue-eyed, a perfect poster boy for the SS.

He used to be a sniper in the US Army Special Forces, and worked primarily with the M24 sniper rifle. The M24 is essentially a modified Remington M700BDL bolt-action hunting rifle, and has a maximum range of 800 meters or so, maybe more with match-grade 7.62x51 mm NATO ammunition.

"Amen to that," the last man replied, also powered down.

He was Sergeant Anthony Chan, former Navy SEAL. He had dark hair and blue eyes, with a voice that seemed to have been made of gravel. He was about an inch shorter than I, but that was tall for one with Asian roots.

He was armed with an M4A1 fitted with a modified M203 grenade launcher and a Trijicon Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG). The M203 was nine inches long, instead of the usual twelve inches, so that it'll fit on the M4's smaller handguard.

In the middle of the aircraft was an ammunition box. The team we were supposed to reinforce had requested a resupply as well.

"Thirty seconds!" the pilot called.

I checked my kit again. My M4A1 was fully loaded, with a round in the chamber. Each of our M4 magazines were placed in a spacer clip, allowing up to 3 magazines to be attached at a time to allow faster reloading. 3 more spacer clips were stored in a pouch on my tactical vest. The carbine's reflex sight was locked into place. Four fragmentary grenades nestled in their pouch. Four white phosphorous grenades and four stun grenades went into two other pouches. Eight batteries of two types went into two separate pouches. My final pouch contained pistol ammunition.

I had two pistols, both modified Springfield Omega pistols, both of them in tactical leg holsters. They were built on the Colt M1911A1 frame, but had a specially built slide and barrel from Peters-Stahl, a German company. It could handle higher pressures than a standard M1911 due to its different operating system. It is cartridge convertible, allowing different types of ammunition to be fired through it by changing the barrel, but I saw no need to bring my conversion kits. I've never fired two pistols before, but I subscribe to the New York Reload: when Gun One is empty, go to Gun Two.

The P1s I had were chambered for the .357 SIG round, a bullet that I didn't particularly agree with, but saved my life and those of others more than once. It was a fast, light, bullet that can be built to resemble a 9mm round, or achieve the killing power of a 10mm. I was using the latter type, since it was supposedly more powerful than even .357 Magnum rounds. I only fired three types of pistol bullets: .45 ACP, 10mm, and now .357 SIG.

Umbrella had decided to adopt a new type of pistol for its mercenary force, and eventually decided on the Omega, after adding a few changes to improve reliability and some minor details. The R & D department even added a laser sight to each pistol. The Umbrella units fit into the guide rods of the pistols they are attached to, so there is no need for special holsters to carry the pistols.

Everyone in Alpha was given the modified Omega pistols, which Umbrella called the P1. The other companies were scheduled to receive them next year. Only Boehm didn't carry a pistol; he had a Mini Uzi instead, which was in a shoulder holster. He preferred carrying it for close quarters battle (CQB).

The Mini Uzi is essentially a smaller form of the venerable Uzi, though this one had a far higher rate of fire and a folding steel wire stock.

"Fifteen seconds!" The pilot called. Outside, the buildings of Raccoon City became clearer and more distinct.

All of us were wearing urban camouflage uniforms, which was a military uniform colored in black, white and gray stripes. Over that was military-issue body armor, able to stop a 7.62x51 mm round. Our tactical vests were worn over the armor. A tactical radio was fitted into a slot on my right shoulder. An Army-issue flashlight was in a pouch on my left leg, and another pocket on my right leg had a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) containing relevant data to the mission. Two one-liter Army-issue water bottles were worn on our belts on either side. The whole load was a little over sixty-eight pounds. As if that was not enough, we had a Ka-Bar combat knife in a boot sheath.

Because I was the point man for this mission, I had AN/PVS-7 night vision goggles, standard US Army issue. Thompson had fitted his machinegun with an NQ/PVS-14 night vision aiming system, which roughly resembles an elongated telescopic sight. Boehm's rifle's scope had a range-finding reticule and a built-in compensator for bullet drop. Chan had opted to bring a 17-in-1 survival kit. Anderson had brought nothing special with him.

"Prepare to go!" the pilot reported. The helicopter started to descend as the mercenaries grabbed the side doors and opened them.

The Jet Ranger stabilized itself, hovering over our insertion zone. In this case, it was the roof of a four-storey apartment block.

"GO! GO! GO!" Anderson called, jumping off the aircraft. I followed. Chan and Thompson grabbed the box, their weapons, and disembarked, quickly followed by Boehm. We spread out, forming a perimeter around the aircraft to cover it from hostiles. It flew off without incident.

I looked around. The roof was bare of anything, save for a massive water tank mounted on its northeast side. A roof access was the only way down.

"Bravo-1, this is Alpha-1. We are on site. Come in, over," Anderson started.

The team we were supposed to reinforce was Bravo-1. Two hours ago, they radioed their position to TOC and passed on what information they had. There were six men in that team. Three were left.

"Alpha-1, Bravo-1. We read you loud and clear. The original RV (rendezvous) point has been compromised. It's full of hostiles."

That was expected. They had reported that a large group of zombies were about to overrun their position.

"Where are you now?"

I looked around. The odor of rotting flesh pervaded the area, almost suffocating all of us, but it could not overpower the smell of death and fear in the city. Long, sinister shadows hid the beasts within, almost like that of a human heart.

"We're in the grocery store opposite your insertion zone."

I frowned. Packs of zombies were roaming the street below. According to our superiors, a terrorist group comprising of the city's ex-S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics And Rescue Service) members had used Umbrella's medicinal compounds and bases to formulate a powerful biological weapon. The infected were transformed into B-movie zombies, only without the lack of horror. There were rumors of another helicopter insertion into the city, long before this mess started. If there was such a thing, nobody seems to have emerged from it alive.

"Hang in there. We'll get to you."

A pack of zombies were outside Bravo-1's building, finding ways and means to breach it. Sporadic muzzle flashes appeared from the second-storey windows, all single-shot. Conserving ammunition was somewhat risky; the situation called for the profligate use of every weapon at hand to drive the zombies back.

"Roger. We can't hold out for long; we're down to our last clip. Out."

"Okay, men. Let's get to Bravo-1. We go down the building, cross the street, and reinforce them. Boehm, provide covering fire across the street. Thompson, when we're on the street, mow down whatever hostiles you see. Stone, Chan, follow me. When we're in the store, provide covering fire so that Boehm can get away. Any questions?"

"Sir, I don't think it's a good idea to leave a man behind by himself," I started.

"Sergeant Stone, don't be ridiculous. We're only fighting against zombies here, and they can't fl-"

Loud cawing erupted from around us. Scanning the skies, I saw a murder of crows heading for us. Their collective noun somehow seemed appropriate for them. They were black, foul beasts of the night, not like ordinary crows. Within their eyes burned a demonic scarlet hue, their behavior too aggressive for normal ones.

Zombies can't fly. Crows can.

"Sir, those crows look hostile to me," the sniper remarked calmly.

The crows started to gather around us, some behaving very oddly.

"Nonsense!" Anderson rebuffed.

That was when several crows dived at him, using their beaks to attempt to rip his flesh off. He screamed, and struggled to pull them off. In his panic, he fell over on his back.

"What the hell are you waiting for? Get them off me!"

"Stay still, sir. Peter, mind if you move aside?" Boehm said, coolly going prone and raising his rifle.

I moved away from his line of sight, and grabbed the ammo box's left handle.

"Howard…"

The ex-Marine complied, taking the right handle.

"What the hell d'you mean stay still!" Anderson screamed.

A loud _crack_ pierced the night air, yellow flame briefly illuminating the area. A pair of the crows fell off him, bleeding from massive entry/exit wounds. The remaining ones scattered, shrieking their disappointment.

"Let's go!" I called, urging them indoors. More crows were gathering, drawn to blood like vultures homing on a carcass. We made our way to the door, and opened it. The ex-Marine went in, dragging the box as he did so, while I covered the others with my carbine.

The other men needed no further encouragement. They ran past me and entered the staircase. I covered them, watching the crows tear their dead siblings apart…Christ! What the hell!

When Boehm entered, I followed, closing and locking the door. I scanned the area. Bright white lights ahead served to dispel the shadows, but the fetid smell of rotting flesh indicated the enemy's presence. The machine gunner was at the right side of the staircase in front of me, behind Chan. The LT and Boehm were on the left.

"What the hell was that?" Howard asked.

"Hell if I know," Chan responded.

"Sir, you all right?" Boehm asked, slinging his rifle and drawing his Mini Uzi.

"Somewhat," he muttered. I inspected his uniform. Apart from a few superficial tears and a spray of blood over the middle of his uniform, he was all right.

"Okay, we've got to make our way to the ground floor. Chan, Boehm, take the ammo box. Stone, take point. Thompson, take the rear," he ordered.

I went ahead, carbine lowered about thirty-five degrees below the horizontal and telescoping stock tight against the hollow of my shoulder. It was retracted all the way, and securely fastened.

Crouching down, I made my way down the stairs, trying not to retch. The white painted walls were stained with blood and pitted with holes, not a good sign. My boots made no sound as they reached the floor. A door stood at the staircase's foot.

"Stack up," I whispered into the radio.

"Hey, I'm in command here," Anderson replied.

Who the hell does that asshole think he is!

"Give the order then."

"Stone, make entry, clear the area, and we'll continue."

Standard operating procedure states that if you have backup, use it. Breaching and clearing a room by yourself is tantamount to suicide without proper training, which I fortunately had.

"Roger."

Asshole.

Weapon ready, I tried the doorknob. It was locked. I kicked it open, causing it to fly aside, revealing a zombie in front of me. It moaned and shuffled forward.

Raising the carbine, I aimed and triple-tapped it in the head, causing it to shatter and spill its contents on the floor. Three brass cartridge casings spat out of the ejection port as I continued. Adrenaline flowed through my veins.

"Contact!" I shouted.

Running forward, I reached a bend, and peeked around it, spotting two more zombies. I aimed, aligning the sight's red dot with the closest zombie's head, and blew it apart with three bullets. I heard every _crack _from the weapon as I fired, felt the recoil as the bullet's gunpowder ignited.

Swiveling left, three more bullets exploded the next zombie's head in a fountain of blood and gore. Standing up, I turned the corner, covering the four doors on either side. Another right turn at the end led to the common staircase.

There was more shuffling from beyond the bend. Walking forward, I kept my weapon up, placing the red dot in front of the bend at head level. A second later, a zombie came into view. I adjusted the laser-projected dot to bring it to bear on its face and pulled the trigger. The recoil faded away as the zombie's head became a stump of red from the three-round burst, the wall behind it stained with blood and brains.

I waited.

Nothing.

Walking forward, I lowered the carbine, and peeked around the bend, seeing only an open wooden door, which probably led to the common staircase.

"Clear. Opening in front of me," I whispered into the mike, as adrenaline faded away. I raised the M4A1 again, covering the door as the others made their way towards me. Footsteps echoed from behind.

"I'm coming from behind," Boehm said.

I swapped magazines, recharging the carbine.

"Okay, now make your way down, one floor at a time," Anderson ordered.

I walked through the door, and scanned. There was nothing, save for another staircase. The brick walls were stained with blood. Carbine ready, I made my way down the metal stairs, finger off the trigger. Instinct shouted a warning as I reached the landing.

Turning right, I saw nothing. I crouched down, and peeked around the corner, using my right leg as support. A dead, or at least visibly dead, Umbrella mercenary was slumped over, next to a wooden door, in front of three equally dead zombies. His M4A1 was still in his hands, a stream of brass near it. A pool of blood gathered around his corpse.

"There's a dead Umbrella operative outside the third floor entrance," I reported.

"Search him for any information and useful items," Anderson replied.

I made my way over to the dead mercenary, watching the door. When I arrived, I took a detailed look at his body. He had all manner of bite marks around his corpse, still glistening with blood and body fluids. A large hole in his torso indicated his cause of death. I rifled through his pockets, finding a spacer clip of ammo for my M4. His carbine's bolt was locked back on an empty chamber, and the magazines were empty of ammunition.

I didn't recognize his face. I reached over to feel for a pulse, already knowing there wasn't one. I grabbed his dog tags. In case of death, it is the last duty we had to perform, if we could not recover the body. Their owner was 'Castle, K' from 'UCS, Delta'. I looked back to him. Castle's eyes lacked something, something that most dead men had…I had to get this thing over with before it drives me crazy…

"Uhhh…" something from behind uttered, its breath a rotten stink. What the-

I turned around, kicking a high roundhouse kick with my right leg as I did so. I felt the boot come into contact with something, and heard a loud crack. When my foot came down, I saw a bullet-ridden zombie stagger backwards. I raised the rifle, and placed three panic shots into his head, killing it finally and bloodily.

Another zombie at my feet came to life, reaching for my left boot. I brought my right boot down hard on its skull, causing it to cave in and throwing out a fountain of blood. I looked at the other zombie, aiming at its head. Half of its head was shot away. I removed my boot from the dead zombie's skull, and shook the brains and blood from it.

Aiming at the door, I whispered, "Clear."

I heard the men come down the stairs, arriving at the landing above me.

"Find anything?"

"M4 ammo."

"Keep it. Who's he?"

"K. Castle from Echo."

"Haven't heard of him. Head for the second floor."

I stuffed the clip into my ammunition pouch, filling it. The dog tags went into the same pouch as the PDA. I continued down, rifle lowered. Reaching the landing, I scanned the area, and saw nothing. I looked at the door to the second floor. A group of zombies were pounding on it, trying to get past. It was barred with boards and nails, the better to reinforce the probably locked door. The door shook and vibrated, but the boards didn't.

"Clear. And watch it; there're a group of zombies beyond the door here."

I aimed the carbine at the door, keeping as far away from it was possible, praying that it wouldn't give way. The wait lasted forever, the zombies' strikes in time with the hammering of my heart.

"We're behind you! Go to the first floor!" Anderson shouted.

I needed no other stimulus to go. Running forward, I headed down the stairs, ready for an ambush. My boots pounded on the metal steps as I continued down, arriving at the first floor without incident. I looked around.

There was a zombie in front of the door, facedown and still. I remembered the lesson a minute or so ago, and stomped on it, breaking its spine with a loud crack. The odor of decay was thick in the air, as though a large number of people had died and decomposed without burial.

"Clear!"

I heard boots pounding as the mercs above moved down.

"Uh, guys…" Howard started. If he says that, then-

"Yeah?" I said, looking at he. His machinegun was raised high, aiming upstairs.

"The door's gonna—"

I heard a loud explosion as wood gave way to flesh. Splinters showered the area, soon followed by a stench of rot.

"Get outta here!" he screamed, machinegun roaring. In the enclosed space, the roar quickly drowned out everything even as I booted the door open and entered the corridor beyond. The others quickly followed. The machinegun stopped bellowing, and I heard a ringing in my ears.

Running through the corridor, I found another bend to the left. I peeked around it, finding a zombie shuffling towards us. I dropped it with three bullets to the face, splattering blood and gore around the area.

I ran on through the bend, finding myself in front of the front door.

"Thompson, cover us! Chan, Boehm, get across to our men! Stone, take point, and cover Chan and Boehm!" Anderson screamed.

Racing to the front door, I kicked it open, finding myself face-to-face with a group of zombies.

SHIT!

Raising my carbine, I placed the red dot on the closest head, and pulled the trigger. The rifle barked and buckled as I moved it around, hosing the group with 5.56x45 mm NATO rounds. Time slowed down, allowing me to watch each death as the carbine fired, brass jumping out of the ejection port like no tomorrow. The zombies' heads exploded into clouds of blood and gray, with some skull fragments being taken along with the fatal bullets. I released my finger from the trigger, and quickly brought it outside the triggerguard, placing it on the carbine's lower receiver, its proper place until shooting starts.

"Bravo-1, Alpha-1. My man is on the street. Do not shoot him," Anderson said.

The dead zombies started to fall over as I ran out into the street, avoiding the bodies and their blood. I kicked a head-shot zombie away from me, clearing a path. Spotting another group of zombies outside the target building, I aimed at them. I pulled the trigger, and exploded another zombie head. The next kill came from another three-round burst into the head of an almost stationary zombie. My next three-round burst drilled into another zombie's face as it turned too slowly to face me. The final bullet went into the last zombie's right temple, coring it and spraying a gout of blood from the exit hole before the carbine _clicked_, the soft, metallic sound strangely louder than the loudest gunshot. I canted the carbine to the right, and saw the chamber. The bolt was locked back on an empty magazine. I swapped magazines, and slammed the bolt forward assist device, cocking the weapon before uprighting it.

"Roger. Damn, he's fast. The door's been unlocked. Come on in."

Turning right, I spotted no other hostiles, and the same went to the left. Time returned to normal as I turned around. The bodies collapsed, and the blood sprays continued their short-lived journey, the final act of a performance of death…if the zombies weren't already dead. Expended brass casings fell like golden paratroopers, landing and bouncing off the road with soft _tink-tink_s that I knew all too well.

"GO! GO! GO!" I screamed. Boehm and Chan sprinted across the street like bats out of hell. I turned right, staring down the ruined street. Empty cars were parked along the street, their windows destroyed. Trails of blood leading away from them explained why. A broken fire hydrant sprayed water around the street, the water droplets crackling on impact. They washed some of the blood from the street, but none from my hands. The mercs opened the door, and ran through. The crows were gone, leaving not a trace.

Thompson ran out of the house, followed by Anderson. They sprinted across the street, uneager to be standing targets. A large group of zombies materialized in front of me, having marched from one end of the ruined street to my location. I turned around, seeing the same thing.

What the hell! How did they get here so fast?

"We're clear! GO!" Anderson shouted. Breaking position, I ran over to the store, charging through the doorway and almost tripping over the now-open ammo box. Somebody slammed the door, and locked it. I turned around.

Bravo-1 was busy helping themselves to the ammo, reloading and refilling their pouches with whatever they could carry, discarding all the empty magazines they had. The counter was directly behind me, and the rest of the grocery store's interior was to my left. There were only empty shelves.

"What happened to your commander?" Anderson asked.

"He's dead. This…creature killed him," a stocky Caucasian replied.

"Describe it."

"It has no skin, so you can see its muscles, and has an exposed brain on its head. It has four legs, all of which end in claws. It can't stand, just crawl about. It has this freaky-ass tongue, damn near as long as its body. It used its tongue to blow through our commander's head, and actually sucked his brains out! It has no eyes or ears, but it knows where we are!"

Echo wasn't required to wear body armor or helmets, much to their sorrow. For Delta, it was optional, and many chose to forsake them. Vests became a must when Charlie went in, and many chose to bring along helmets as well. Helmets were optional for Bravo, but every man brought his before meeting his destiny. We had to wear both. Our life is a Darwinian world; the stupid ones are dead, and the living ones can only get smarter by learning from the dead.

"Licker," Anderson muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

Anderson knew more than he was letting on. A hell of a lot more. What the hell is going on here? Who the hell is he?

"Okay. Introduce yourselves," Anderson said.

"I'm Sergeant Thomas Johnston," the speaker replied. An M4A1 was in his hands.

The man next to him, a swarthy American Asian, said, "John Kim, Sergeant." A Mark 46 Mod 0 was in his hands.

"Sergeant Juan Chavez," the last man said. He was a tall Hispanic cradling an M4A1 with an M203. A pair of NVGs hung around his neck.

We introduced ourselves to the team.

"Where's your lieutenant's body?" Anderson asked.

"Why?" Chavez replied.

Anderson was about to open his mouth when I looked out of the store's window.

A large mass of zombies was massing outside the store, gathering for an unholy purpose. Some groaned as they staggered forward, stretching their arms out as they did so. Their combined stench wafted in from the gap beneath the door.

"INCOMING!" I screamed, raising my carbine.

Author's Note: This story runs parallel to the events of RE 2, RE 3: Nemesis, and perhaps RE: Outbreak. This is the first time I'm doing something like this, so please read and review. Thank you. In case you're wondering, Peter Stone belongs to the larger security force that Umbrella maintains, not the 'night men' (also known as UCBS, Umbrella Corporation Biological Security) referred to in RE 3, and the reason for Stone's slow motion kills will be explained later.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Nature Of A Hero 

2015 hours

"Is there a back door?" Anderson called.

"Yes! There's a storeroom behind that door. A door there leads to a back alley," Chavez called, indicating the door behind the counter on our right. I noticed a pair of NVGs around his neck.

"Let's go! Stone, Boehm, take point! Thompson, Kim, rearguard!"

Snapping away from my position, I ran towards the wooden counter, and vaulted over it, landing on the opposite side with a wooden _thud_. Boehm opened the gate separating the counter from the rest of the shop, and walked through. Damn it.

He was closer to the door. He glanced at me, and I nodded. I walked over to the left side of the door, and Boehm took the right, Mini Uzi in hand.

"On three. One, two three!" Boehm whispered.

He kicked the door open, and rushed in, turning right. I followed, turning left.

We were in a storeroom of sorts, with metal shelves arrayed parallel to the walls. A wooden door stood along at the back. The lights were on, revealing…nothing. There was nothing here on first inspection. We sidestepped along the walls, searching the room while keeping our backs to the walls. We found ourselves facing each other at the far end of the room. Again, nothing.

"Clear!" I called.

"Clear!" Boehm agreed.

Rule number 1. Always expect the unexpected.

The door creaked open. It opened to the right, in front of me. The person who opened the door didn't open it fully, a stench of rot explaining why. What the hell… The zombies can actually open doors…

"Pete! Get down!" Boehm called.

I dropped prone.

Three loud, fast booms echoed throughout the room, almost drowning out the sound of a wet smack and thud. Wood splintered above me, floating down so slowly that it mocked the violence that prompted its existence.

"Clear!" Boehm called, his voice floating through the ringing in my ears.

I picked myself up, and grabbed the door, opening it fully. There was a large, bloody hole on the door where my head would have been. Boehm was standing at his position, Mini Uzi smoking. I looked at my feet, seeing a zombie without a head, and a spreading pool of blood and bone where the latter should be.

"Okay, out the back," I said.

"Got it."

I activated the radio.

"Sir, this is Stone. The storeroom behind the main room is clear, over."

I almost couldn't pronounce 'sir'. How the hell did Anderson become a lieutenant?

"Roger, Stone. Secure the back alley, and wait for us at its mouth."

"Roger that, sir. Over and out."

Boehm looked at me and nodded. He had heard the radio conversation. I would go in first, since my carbine's 5.56x45mm NATO bullets were more powerful than his Mini Uzi's puny 9x19mm Luger rounds. Not that I liked either round.

I stepped into the back alley. It was a roofless corridor whose walls were built of concrete, built probably because the people decided that this shop should have a place where garbage cans can be placed. It was wide enough for two people to traverse comfortably. The walls were caked with grime and dirt, the walls littered with fallen leaves and cans. To my left were two garbage cans, both empty. The alley held no enemies, but I couldn't say anything about the street beyond.

I took the right side, and darted forward for a yard or so, and waited for Boehm to catch up as I crouched down, presenting a smaller target profile. We kept away from the walls as much as we could; bullets ride along walls for a longer distance than through air. I brought my weapon up, covering the alleyway's mouth. I heard his footsteps as he ran up, taking the left wall. He crouched as well, and brought his SMG (submachine gun) up.

Together, we moved along the alley, moving towards the mouth. We stopped half a meter short of it. There was nothing on the cracked pavement outside, and the flickering streetlights revealed nothing. 

Glass shattered, immediately tended to by full automatic gunfire. The store had been breached.

"Lead, Boehm. Alley is clear."

"Roger. Team, move out!"

It was a tense wait. I kept my eyes on the street, watching, waiting. I couldn't turn back, couldn't rush to the other men. Boehm would be left alone, and that would be fatal. Death comes in too many forms to count. My shirt was plastered to my back, the result of sweating for God knows how long.

The sounds of battle grew louder as the mercenaries drew near. I tensed myself.

"I'm coming from behind!" Kim screamed.

The mercs piled into the corridor, shots reverberating around the corridor, almost deafening me despite the helmet. Fresh rot drifted into my nostrils, accompanied by the cries of living dead as bullets slammed into them.

"Get out on the street! MOVE!" the lieutenant called from behind.

I dashed out into the street, turning left as I did so. Boehm was behind me. I stopped on the concrete pavement, and scanned the area, seeing no zombies. I dashed down the pavement, letting the men behind run. I turned back.

Shit. More zombies, enough to cover the whole street. They lurched forward, trying to get their hands on living flesh and blood.

"Fucking RUN! Run like fuck!" Anderson screamed.

We didn't run. Fear and adrenaline gives men wings. We flew down the street, the streetlamps barely able to throw shadows around before we left their area of influence. Dead buildings promised death should we enter. The moon was right. Too many good men would die before this was over.

Boots pounding on the pavement, I looked around, seeing a brightly lit Shell petrol station up ahead, on the other side of the street. A solitary police car waited lifelessly next to a petrol kiosk. Several oil drums were arrayed next to the station's mini mart.

Gas plus empty oil drums plus match or spark equals makeshift firebomb…

"Make for the gas station! We can use the fuel and drums there to blow the bastards up!" I yelled.

"Good idea! RUN THERE!" Anderson concurred.

Sprinting across the street, my legs moved faster, racing the others. I arrived at the station before the rest of the mercenaries, and looked around. No zombies. Boehm stopped next to me. Together, we entered the mini mart. I took the right wall, leaving Boehm to have his back to the counter. I sidestepped along the glass walls, looking down the empty aisles. Nothing. Kim sidestepped along the counter, and saw nothing

"Clear!" I panted. Boehm said the same word.

We stepped outside, just in time to see the others. Thompson and Kim gasped for breath, each having lugged around maybe two-thirds of his weight at a speed rivaling a lion chasing his prey. So were the others.

"Any…thing…?" Anderson asked between breaths.

"No…clear…." I wheezed.

"Okay…fill…the oil…drums and…prepare to…blow 'em up," Anderson ordered, referring to the zombies or the oil drums or both. Probably both.

Anderson slung his machine gun behind his back and grabbed one of the empty oil drums while I walked over to a petrol kiosk. Boehm and the others helped Thompson.

Police car…

"LT, I'm going to…check the police car. It might…have something we can use."

"Okay. Do it."

Walking over to it, I looked inside.

There was a cop, lying on the driver's seat. He had several bloody wounds on his torso, with evident bite marks. He wouldn't survive them, not unless he was in a hospital right now. Maybe not even then. Blood was splattered all around the interior of the car, food for the zombies.

Despite all that, his chest was moving. He was still breathing, still alive. He turned to me, eyes very much alive.

"Hello," he whispered.

"We've got a survivor!" I screamed.

The others dropped their work and raced for the car.

"Who're you?" the police officer asked.

"US Army, sir. We're here to rescue the civilians," I lied. That was our cover story, in case someone ever asked.

"Rescue...eh? Good…about time Uncle Sam did something."

Anderson was first on the scene.

"What's your name?"

"Richard Kieslowski."

"Okay…we're going to get you out of here as soon as possible."

"Bull…shit. I'm not going to…live through my…wounds…"

"You will."

"Bull…shit. This is a…petrol station, right? There…should still be…some gas left…fill the drums up…and load my car with the monsters. I'll use it…as a kamikaze."

His car was angled towards the main road, allowing him to see the zombies marching towards us.

"We won't-"

"Look. What's your rank?"

"Second lieutenant."

"Only? I'm a captain…first US Army, now…National Guard and…RPD. YOU do as I say. Besides…I'll only slow you down. Ain't nothing…here you can use…shotgun's empty, no spare ammo…can't help you…except to…"

"But—"

"That is an order, Lieutenant," Captain Richard Kieslowski ordered, his voice transforming into one of command.

"Yes sir."

The men moved off, opening the oil drums and passing them to me. I filled five of them up, and arranged them in the car. There was one in the trunk, three in the back, and one more in the passenger's seat. As an afterthought, I refilled the car's gas tank, adding more fuel to a future fire. Total explosive yield would be enough to turn the car into a smoking crater, and kill everything within a fifteen meter radius or so, enough to cover the street.

"Okay…is there a match?" Kieslowski asked.

"Nope."

"That's okay. I've a match..."

"Uh…captain," I started, suddenly remembering the words of my Special Forces instructor.

"Yeah?"

"The gas…it won't explode, not unless heat, gas vapor and air mix. We need to put holes in the oil drums."

"You crazy, man?" he replied.

"No…trust me."

I slung the carbine behind me, and removed my knife from its sheath. The carbon steel blade was phosphated-black, meant for use in a fighting utility knife. It could drive tent pegs, hammer nails, dig a foxhole, or slice a person's heart open. In use with the United States Marine Corps for several decades of service, the Ka-Bar is still going strong.

I walked over to the open trunk, and gripped the knife firmly. I slashed downwards, the blade penetrating the thin metal. I sliced a long vertical line, followed by a horizontal one, before rotating the oil drums with both hands. Fuel gushed out from the hole like blood flowing from an open wound. I repeated that for all of the drums, and gave a thumbs-up to Kieslowski.

The man started his car for a final time. It purred beautifully. The captain drove it out of the station, and headed for the zombies. The car bomb raced through the night, a dying man's final act of defiance against his environment.

"TAKE COVER!" Anderson screamed. We ran behind the mini mart, taking what scant cover it offered.

We arrived just in time before the car exploded. I didn't see it explode, but the sound wave was enough to allow an estimate. It swept across the street, deafening me, even from this distance. My ears rang, protesting the abuse inflicted upon it. The pressure wave shattered the glass in the mini mart and lamps immediately, turning artificial day into true night as the fireball subsided. The buildings' glass were gone as well, a direct result of overpressure. Debris started falling from the sky, lethal rain formed from a deadlier cause.

"Take cover!" I screamed. The men raced for the interior of the mini mart.

Henry David Thoreau had said that heroes were the most ordinary of men. Indeed. The police officer was ordinary, looked ordinary, had a face so ordinary that it was impossible to describe. His name was Polish, revealing his ancestry, but America is a nation of immigrants, so there wasn't anything strange about that.

The nature of a hero: a person willing to help others, regardless of risk to himself or others, or fighting for a cause without losing faith, despite all odds. People like me weren't heroes, couldn't aspire to be among their honored ranks. As long as we sold our skills to the highest bidder, we were mercenaries, dogs of war, professionals in a dishonorable profession. Of course, no one thought like that anymore.

"All right, let's move out. Lieutenant Sanderson's body is just up the road," Anderson said.

We moved out on the street. I took a brief glance at the road behind us.

Kieslowski wouldn't have died in vain. His pyre had spread throughout the road about ten yards away from the station, barricading it in a sea of flame. Nothing could pass through it and live. I could feel the heat from the fire, feel his spirit from it. His car was ripped apart from within, various scrap metal parts scattered throughout the road or thrown through glass windows, probably killing even more zombies. I turned away from the roaring flames, and back to the mercenaries. We still had a job to do; I couldn't think about Kieslowski's sacrifice, couldn't think about his heroism.

"The lieutenant's body is down this street, at the T-junction. Johnston, Kim, Chavez, move along the street opposite us and take up urban warfare positions," Anderson ordered.

What that meant was that the men organize themselves in a straight line and move along the road. The point man goes first, followed by the leader, the grenadier, and machinegunner. Boehm had to take his place behind Anderson. It took a minute to form up, and we started off on our journey.

Johnston, Kim, and Chavez had to make do with three men instead of four…six, really. This operation had been a balls-up from the beginning…a lieutenant never had to command six men; it was the job of a sergeant or corporal. Some genius decided to split everyone up into small teams, not realizing that it was easier for small, separate teams to get wiped out than a large, united force. Hell, most of the teams are probably already dead.

We walked down the street, weapons held ready. The diffused light from the functional streetlights revealed that the road was empty of anything. The buildings we passed by were all damaged in one way or another, some splattered with gore; others pockmarked with bloody bullet holes. There were no corpses, no other sign of battle. The structures should have been cleared by the original 120 men. If not, well, it wasn't our job.

Sweat rolled down my face, a by-product of overheating. I couldn't stop, not now. We scanned the area around us, searching for anything still alive. A dozen or so meters later, I spotted a flash far away, silhouetting a three-storey building in the distance.

"What was that?" Thompson asked the air.

"I don't know…looks like something exploded on the roof of the police station," Johnston replied.

"A helicopter, maybe?"

"I don't know…"

We continued our journey in silence, footsteps and breathing the only man-made sounds in the area. The crows were silent, if there were any around. The air grew heavy with fear and nervousness, a prelude to battle. I checked the carbine's safety with my thumb, finding it still set to automatic. I kept my finger off the trigger, waiting for a target.

Something impacted into the ground a meter in front of me, throwing up gravel.

"What the—" I started.

It was followed by several dozen more explosions of dirt and gravel, a strange phenomenon in a city of the dead. We stepped back, in case there were some more detonations. The laws of cause and effect states that nothing occurs without a cause, and that no cause leads to anything else. They were set in stone; no one could credibly challenge it.

"What was that?" Anderson asked.

"I don't know…I'm going to check it." I replied.

I walked carefully to the nearest hole, waiting for any more. There were no more mystery projectiles. Peering into the hole, I made out the rough shape of a bullet, albeit crushed into a nearly deformed mass.

"Looks like missed rounds. Someone fired a gun into the air, and the bullets happened to land here," I shouted.

Thompson chuckled a little. So did the others, except Anderson.

"Move out!" he ordered.

Standing up, I turned around and returned to my position, staying away from the windows, lest a zombie crash through it.

We headed down the street, still tensed for combat. Buildings passed by, mostly residential buildings. Raccoon City still had the feel of suburbia in some of the more urbanized parts, at least, the last time I visited it. Now…death has descended upon it, passing judgment on all within the city.

A building's window shattered up ahead. Through what little light there was, I spotted some sort of creature climbing out of the hole. It resembled a spider, but it had four legs. It was bathed in shadow; no further description possible.

"Contact, twelve o'clock!" I shouted, crouching as I did so.

Raising my carbine, I aimed at its center of mass and pulled the trigger. Three bullets slammed into its side, throwing something out. An unholy cry followed the ballistic insult. The rifle bucked as I readjusted my aim, seeing some more bullets strike the monster. I fired again, another three-round burst tearing up its left side. Kim's machinegun spoke, sending a long stream of 5.56x45 mm NATO bullets into it even as another M4A1 fired. Every fifth machinegun round was a tracer to allow the firer to adjust his aim. Red lights streaked through the air, touching the monster and throwing out red sparks.

It fell off the wall and landed on its back on the pavement, protesting at its death. Its limbs lashed out at everything around it, striking nothing but air.

"Cease fire!" Anderson shouted.

We rushed over to it, examining our kill. It was still by the time we arrived.

The monster had been torn up badly. The entry wounds were small, but the exit holes were big and full of green ichor, thanks to the design of the bullet we used. The standard 5.56x45 mm round was designed to have the highest possible ballistic coefficient for a bullet of its type. As a result, it was barely stable in flight. When it enters a body, it yaws and tumbles, crashing through whatever organ and blood vessels it touches, leaving large holes when it leaves.

The thing we shot had a brown hide, with four legs ending in a claw. It had no obvious head, and something that looked like a mouth was under its abdomen. It wasn't a Licker, or whatever Anderson had called it. We pointed our weapons at its center of mass, fingers on the trigger, ready to kill it if it wasn't dead.

Thompson gave it a kick. It didn't stir. Another nudge yielded nothing but more green fluid on Thompson's boots.

"It's dead," he concluded, shaking away the substance on his boots. It landed harmlessly on the asphalt road.

"What do you think it is?" Kim started.

"…I have no idea," Anderson responded.

He knew what it was; the truth was in his eyes. Who was he?

"The junction is about thirty meters ahead. Move out!" the 'lieutenant' ordered.

We returned to our positions, and continued our march.

A few minutes later, the junction came into view, illuminated by a single flickering streetlight. The others around it were damaged in a variety of ways. Damaged and battered cars blocked off all entrances to the middle, a makeshift barricade against an overwhelming force. Beyond the barricade was a high metal fence, defining the perimeter of the police station.

Thompson was right; a helicopter had crashed into the roof of the police station, burning its fuel away. Its glare almost destroyed what night vision I had left.

We moved up the pavement, waiting for something to pop out. I could smell the zombies' presence from my position. Large gray rats scurried about at my feet, eager to feast on any food available. A swift kick to one of them discouraged the rest from gathering at my feet.

A few minutes later, we were a meter from the cars, guns up and scanning. The zombies' stench grew thicker and several loud moans echoed from the middle of the T-junction, signs of their presence.

Something stood up, its upper torso and head visible behind the hood of the car. I moved the red dot over its head, finger ready to race for the trigger.

"Fire at will, and charge the barricades! Flank them! Thompson, Boehm, rearguard!" Anderson shouted.

My finger found the trigger a nanosecond later. It squeezed, almost by itself, and the M4A1 barked, sending three rounds into the back of the zombie's head. It fell forward immediately, a cloud of red and gray announcing its death.

"Cover me! I'm moving in!" I screamed, adrenaline taking over. Time seemed to slow a little.

"Okay!" the ex-SEAL called, moving behind me. The men of Bravo-1 acted the same way, racing for the barricade's right flank.

Running forward, I scanned for targets. Nothing. I sprinted diagonally up to the cars, and a zombie came into view. I stopped, raised the carbine, and shot it thrice in the head; a red cloud and a loud wet smack the end result. It fell forward slowly.

"Three o'clock!" Chan screamed.

I turned to my left, seeing a pair of zombies approaching me with their arms outstretched. A three round bust to the zombie on the left brought him down, and a double-tap from Chan shattered the other zombie's face, almost deafening me. Time slowed again, allowing me to hear each crack.

Turning again, I spotted three zombies moving towards me from the center of the barricade. A burst of gunfire later, one of them collapsed to his right, blood spraying from his head wound, courtesy of Bravo-1.

The carbine became a natural extension of my body. I aimed, and shot three rounds into the closer zombie's head, taking off the top of his skull in a spray of blood. Chan took the other one, and the two of them started to fall, just as the first zombie hit the floor.

We reached the car. I vaulted over it, landing on the hood. I looked around. The other zombies had collapsed, adding more blood to the lakes of blood here. A lone, dead mercenary was on the ground, most of his body eaten away, revealing gleaming bone. A solitary hole in his half-eaten face was his cause of death, courtesy of a monster's tongue. His pistol, a SIG Pro SP 2340, was gripped in the skeletal remains of his right hand, its slide locked back. His carbine had been discarded for an unknown reason. Brass casings and empty magazines were scattered around the area. Five more dead zombies, in various states of consumption, were scattered around he. None of them had received their headshots, though. We took care of that, ending the battle.

Gun smoke curled up from the muzzles of our weapons as adrenaline faded away. A final, quick scan revealed nothing more.

"The area is clear," Chan alerted the others, his voice transmitted into the radio.

"Roger," the others replied.

Anderson came up soon afterwards, followed by Boehm and Thompson. Was he too afraid to actually fire his gun? He hasn't shot anyone or anything yet, and he chose to send us in harm's way instead of participating in battles himself. What kind of leader is he?

I slung the M4A1 behind my shoulder, climbed down from the car, and landed on a slippery pool of blood. I walked carefully on it, not wanting to slip and fall on the blood and brains. Treading on the blood, I made my way to the discarded carbine, and checked it. Its sight was functional. Its spacer clip still had one full magazine. When I cocked it, an unfired bullet flew out of the ejection port, and another one moved up. Why did he throw the gun away…?

"What are you doing?" Anderson inquired.

"Checking to see if this carbine can be used."

"Okay," he conceded.

I crouched down, ejected the spacer clip, and placed it on a dry patch of ground. I set it to safe, and cocked the weapon, clearing it. I pressed the rear pin behind the grip as far down as it would go. Flipping the rifle, I pulled out the exposed takedown pin, and swung the upper receiver away from the lower receiver. I inspected the trigger group. It was intact. Next, I removed the charging handle and the bolt carrier group.

I removed the tiny retaining pin from the BCG. Upending the BCG caused the firing pin to drop out and into my waiting hand. All two parts of it. The firing pin was broken into two. I stared at it for a second before placing it on the ground.

Then, I slid the bolt cam pin down, below a stupid looking carrying handle-like thing. After aligning it flush with the hole it was currently in, I pulled it out after a few seconds' struggle. Finally, I removed the bolt from the group. The weapon was now field stripped, taking a total of forty seconds.

The broken firing pin was the cause of the rifle's failure to fire. I wasn't too surprised. The M4A1 had a higher rate of fire than the M16 series, so there is more stress on moving parts…including the firing pin.

"So what happened to it?" Chan asked.

I held up both pieces of the firing pin.

"Damn…poor guy."

I looked at the carnage we had wrought. The men were scattered around the area, talking and trying to relieve the stress of combat. Anderson had his PDA in his left hand, and the other lieutenant's PDA in his right hand. He was downloading something into it, possibly some classified data or other.

I walked over to him when he was done.

"The M4's firing pin is broken. We can't use it."

"And the pistol?"

"Let me see…"

I walked over to the corpse, and pried the pistol away from his cold, dead, hand.

The SP 2340 is the result of a collaborative effort between SAN Swiss Arms (formerly known as SIG Arms) and S.P. Sauer & Sohn of Germany. It was chambered for the .40 Smith and Wesson round, a round originally developed for the Federal Bureau of Investigation after they found that the 10 mm Automatic round they wanted for their service weapons had too much recoil for most small-sized agents to bear. This pistol was released earlier this year, meant for law enforcement and government use with its 12 round magazine. Umbrella re-equipped its mercenaries with this pistol to replace the old service weapon, the Colt Gold Cup, thanks to some bean counters. Now, it was going to be replaced again by the P1, the result of some more bean counters.

I never liked the .40. Unless its powder charge was just right, the result could be disastrous. Over-powered rounds may cause the pistol to explode, and underpowered ones won't produce enough pressure to cycle the slide. The margin of error for the .40 is much smaller than any round I am comfortable with. Besides…I never liked the concept. It was, after all, a compromise round, standing somewhere between the 9mm and .45 ACP round.

I stripped the pistol, finding nothing wrong with it. I put it back together.

"It can work," I told Anderson.

"Okay. Pass it on to someone if you don't want it, along with the ammo."

I gave the pistol to Kim, who didn't have a pistol. His was lost somewhere, covered in blood. After distributing the ammo to the others, I learnt the dead lieutenant's story, courtesy of Chavez.

"The monsters backed us up into this area when we called for help, see. We put up a hell of a fight, and burnt most of our ammo. However, there were more of them, too many to count. We had no place to run.

"The LT used up his grenades to clear a path for us down this road. See the holes on the road? He told us to run for it, and that he'll cover us. When I turned around, the zombies had overrun his position, but that monster beat them to him…"

Chavez broke down, weeping openly. Kim patted him on the back.

I looked at the road, noticing several pits for the first time. Dried blood shined from the road, but there were no bodies, no nothing. No head wounds, no deaths. Damn it all. The zombies only died when their heads were blown off, or were otherwise subjected to massive ballistic trauma, often enough to tear them in half. Blood and gore is the only thing we didn't have too much of.

The dead lieutenant's story reminded me of several war stories I have heard. None of them involved mercenaries. I was wrong; not all mercenaries cared about selling their skills. Some were soldiers, and cared about their men.

I think.

"Take five, people. After that, we're heading down the street to our right. We still have a job to do," Anderson reminded.

"What job?" Chavez muttered in between his tears.

Author's note: Okay…this is the improved Chapter 1. I wasn't too happy with the original, so I expanded it. In RE 3, the mercenaries use a different SIG Pro pistol. The problem is…that 9mm gun was released in 1999, if my research is right, so I wrote about the SP 2340 instead. Sorry if I had offended anyone…


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Cornered 

2045 hours

By now, everybody was sick of the mess on the road. Kim vomited into a gutter. Chavez dried his tears. Boehm took the time to light a cigarette, and took one puff before tossing it into another gutter. Thompson covered the left side of the T-junction, unable to stare at the blood and gore. Johnston played with his carbine a little, something usually found in Hollywood. Anderson read some data from his PDA, probably the information he recovered. I changed the magazine on my carbine, and transferred some bullets from a spacer clip into the one in my M4A1, not an easy task with fingerless gloves. By the time I was done, my fingers were sore.

Anderson toyed around with his PDA for a few seconds before closing it and placing it in his leg pouch. A quick glance at his non-regulation holster revealed that it was custom-built to accept an extremely large pistol with a telescopic sight. Only one pistol could possibly fit that category: a Desert Eagle, custom fitted with a 2-4x telescopic sight and extended barrel.

The Desert Eagle, developed by Magnum Research Inc. and produced by Israeli Military Industries, deserves the dubious honor of being the largest and heaviest handgun ever built in modern times. It has an unconventional look, largely because of the fact that it is produced differently from most handguns: the slide does not cover the barrel; the latter is covered by a single machined piece of metal. Judging by its size, Anderson's model was chambered for the .50 Action Express round, the largest, most powerful pistol round ever produced. The fact that the pistol was originally meant for target/sport shooting failed to discourage Hollywood from using it, or Anderson, for that matter.

"All right, people, five minutes is up. Form up and go. Our next objective is to clear out the area of Raccoon City starting from here to the extract zone. Rules of engagement are still in force," Anderson shouted. The last part meant that if we saw a zombie/monster, we were allowed to blow it away. Human beings were exempt from this order, assuming that they weren't zombies.

I took point, of course. Being point man being the man who leads the way. Coincidentally, he's the man who usually gets shot first in lieu of a better target.

We headed down the right turn of the T-junction, based on Anderson's instructions, keeping to the sidewalks. Nothing stirred from the dead night as we walked, weapons up and covering the area. My carbine trembled in anticipation, not knowing when it would be called upon. Hopefully never, but never is a long time. My trigger finger stayed on the magazine well, ready to return to the trigger at a moment's notice.

We weren't really walking per se: we were crouched into a position about half our height while moving to present a smaller target while maintaining speed. Only problem was; that tactic only works in urban warfare, where enemies are armed with firearms. Nobody ever said anything about enemies who use their body parts instead.

The cool night air was still, undisturbed by the events of the past few days. A few rats scurried around near my boot when we paused to allow the machinegunners to catch up. I scanned the streets, watching and waiting as we moved. Nothing.

A lone moan, uttered by a zombie, came from a three-storey building fifteen meters in front of me. In the distance, there was a regular metallic pounding, as though someone was banging on something made of metal. The road split into another T-junction.

"What the hell's that?" Thompson muttered.

"'That' being?" Boehm answered.

"That banging noise."

"…I don't know, and I intend to find out."

"You crazy, man?" A note of fear tinged his voice.

Fear is never an option. Fear is the mind-killer. It is the little death that will allow other means of death. Boehm, Chan, and I had undergone…special…training in this field, but Thompson was a mere Marine…chances are very high that he had not.

"Pipe down," Anderson whispered over the mike. "Stone, check it out. Chan, Kim, cover him. Rest of you, stay alert."

The two men came up to me.

"Pete, delta formation?" Chan asked.

That meant that each of us take a point of a triangle, the original delta. The whole idea was to maintain the ability to concentrate at least two-thirds of the team's firepower on any one side while maintaining flexibility. However, four men were always preferable to three.

"Okay…I think we might need another man," I answered.

"Yeah…" Kim replied.

"Sir, this is Stone. We need another man for backup," I said over the mike.

"Roger. Johnston, you're up."

Johnston ran up to me.

"Diamond formation. I'll take point. Once we're at the T-junction, we split. Rich, stay with me. Tom, John, stick together and cover our six. If it's a confirmed enemy, kill it. Any objections?" I whispered.

A diamond formation meant that from above, each man in the team takes up each point of a diamond. The idea behind this formation was the same as that of the delta formation. Of course, like all team formations, if any one man fails in his duty, the formation becomes useless.

The men shook their heads. Half a minute later, we were in position, and set off. Raising the carbine, I pointed it at the door, but didn't peer through the Aimpoint reflex sight. That cuts down on peripheral vision.

We half-jogged, half-sprinted, to the intersection, waiting for combat. Upon arrival at the threshold of the junction, Kim and Johnston split away, and headed for the opposite side of the street. All this while, the banging became more regular, more insistent. The stench of death warned us all of the zombies nearby. Chan and I crept forward, weapons up. I turned right, and saw what the banging was all about.

The police had erected several barricades across the length of the street in an effort to contain the zombies' advance. Predictably, the zombies were attempting to break the barricades down to cross. The blue-painted mobile metal walls were the only things standing between us and an almost unstoppable tide of zombies. Judging by the way they were sagging, we didn't have much time before—

A long groan sounded from the building. I turned in time to see Chan cut a zombie down. It was standing at the suddenly open doorway. I turned to him. We nodded.

Running forward, I kept my gun on the doorway as Chan watched our back. When we arrived at the house, I looked through the window next to the door, seeing dark nothingness as my M4A1's muzzle covered the room beyond the window. Activating my night vision goggles; the world became a field of shades of green, revealing two standing man-like shapes in the middle of the room I was looking into. They lurched towards me. Adrenalin rushed through my veins, making time slow down.

I aimed the carbine at the closer of the two zombies and pulled the trigger. It staggered backwards, spraying liquid from its head, and fell. Swiveling right, I aligned the barrel with the second zombie's head and cracked off a three-round burst that opened the zombie's head up, spraying blood and gore around the room. Time returned to normal.

I looked around. Nothing. Recharging the carbine, I turned to the radio mike.

"LT, Stone. There appears to be hostile activity within the house. Requesting permission to clear it."

"Roger, stand by. Move on my mark. Men, move up and secure the T-junction."

I raised the NVGs. They reduce peripheral vision and visual clarity, something I needed on the somewhat-lit city street. The pounding became louder, faster, as though the zombies beyond had found a weak spot. I turned to the rest of the men, seeing them race up the street. For God's sake, hurry up!

Thompson crossed the threshold, and arrived in the middle of the T-junction, the last man among the rest of the mercenary teams. The men moved into position, covering both sides of the street and the windows of the house.

Anderson ordered, "Okay m—"

The barricades collapsed, a metallic crash accompanying their descent. To me, it was the sound of death. The zombies let out animal groans and moans, eager to feast on us. I turned to face the barricades, seeing too many gray-skinned zombies to count.

The mercenaries opened up, spraying automatic fire into the mass. I placed the stock of the carbine well into my shoulder, digging it firmly into the hollow of my shoulder. I picked a target, and blew its head off with a three-round burst. The zombie next to it received the same dose of lead before someone else's burst chopped it in half.

The front line of zombies received the machinegunners' full attention. They went down in a long, loud burst of gunfire and gore, falling where they stood. The 5.56x45mm NATO round was meant to tear into and explode out of bodies with devastating results…on living flesh, within 150 yards. For the zombies, unless they had their spines broken, or their heads shot off, that meant nothing. About one thirds of the original front line were dead. The rest picked themselves up from the ground and marched towards us, ignoring their wounds. I gunned down a pair of wounded zombies, knowing the futility of the current situation. The others opened fire, attempting to stem a tide with shovels.

"Fall back down the road!" Anderson ordered.

We needed no encouragement. Like before, we turned and ran, with the machinegunners and grenadiers giving us covering fire. Explosions and long, chattering bursts filled the night air as we ran.

Being point man also means being the first to turn tail and run. It felt like abandoning my duty, but I still had a job to do. I ran down the street, seeing the architecture shift. Now, there were hotels and cafés up the street. They were no less hostile than the buildings we had gone through.

There was a hotel at the far end of the street, before it became another T-junction. Based on earlier reports, the left side of the junction had been barricaded by the police. The hotel's lights were still on, giving an illusion of hope in a city replete with hopelessness.

"Make for the hotel! We can escape through the back door!" Anderson ordered.

Assuming that there was a back door to begin with.

The gunfire and explosions died away as we approached the hotel, still being chased by the monsters. Its lights beckoned in the distance, almost fading away in a never-ending road. Einstein was right. Time is relative to the observer. He forgot to include distance as well. The road stretched on to infinity, an impossible goal. Abandoned cars lined the street, their owners dead, dying, or soon to die.

A window in a building up ahead shattered, and two creatures jumped out of the hole produced before climbing up the walls. The streetlights illuminated them perfectly. They resembled the four-legged creature we had encountered earlier, possibly siblings. No matter. Time slowed down once more, almost as though allowing me to aim.

I didn't, after a fashion. Raising my carbine, I fired a long burst at them while running. The bullets dug into concrete and flesh, spraying green fluid and dust. A stream of empties were spat out of the M4A1's ejection port as the monsters screamed. One of them fell to the road, its legs kicking out in its death throes. The other one continued for a foot or two before another mercenary's burst knocked it off and down to its death.

There was a car in the middle of the street, the driver's side door open. Judging by the rubber marks, it had swerved to avoid something and had spun ninety degrees or so. A dried blood trail leading from the driver's seat told the tale of its owner. We ran around it, not caring to use it. Yet.

We made it, after a fashion. The run was a little under a mile, about one-fifths of the distance I run every day. I was fresher than most of the others when I arrived. I glanced at the hotel.

It was six stories high, designed to look like another apartment block. Neon lights above the entrance read 'Peace Hotel', an odd name in a city of war. The doors appeared to be built of unusually thick glass, but rifle bullets would shatter them easily. Beyond the doors was the lighted lobby of the hotel, empty of zombies. The familiar stench of death hung in the air like an old friend and enemy combined.

Running over to the T-junction, I looked down the right side of the street.

Shit.

There was another army of zombies heading down the street, consuming all in its path. A dead mercenary, slumped over against a wall, was being eaten by several of them. A couple more settled on the corpses—at least, they looked like corpses—of some dogs on the street. This group had to be larger than the one we were fleeing from, and _that_ one was too large for us to kill.

Soft, insistent pounding resounded from behind. Turning around, I saw two large police barricades stretching across the road, both of which were being hammered against on the other side.

History repeats itself only when people fail to learn from their mistakes. By sticking to wide, open streets, Anderson was constantly exposing us to this sort of danger, and now, we were cornered. Asshole.

"What's that?" Boehm called from behind.

"Incoming zombies on the right turn, and some more are going to break through on the left."

"Shit."

"Aren't we all in it?"

Chan, followed by Anderson and Thompson caught up soon after. Bravo-1 was about a hundred feet away, covering our back. The car was too far away to be of any use; a bullet fired from there would do virtually no damage to the zombies. Shooting at close ranges is the only way to kill them with our weaponry.

"Get the doors open," Anderson ordered.

"Sir, there're some more zombies coming down the street on the right of this junction, and more of them are trying to break through the police barricade on the left," I said.

"What d'you mean?"

"See for yourself."

Anderson did what I did, and turned back, his face grim.

"Stone, breach the doors. Rest of you, cover this road!" he shouted, before turning back and firing off several bursts from his carbine.

Rushing over to the glass doors, I grabbed the metal handles on both doors and pulled. Nothing. A push yielded the same results. Locked. Looking around, I saw the lock. It was mounted on the bottom of the doors, bolting them to the floor.

"Peter Stone, whatever you're doing, make it fast. The zombies are coming this way," Kim reported over the radio.

I raised my carbine, placing the stock under my armpit and pointing it at the door on the left. Squeezing the trigger, I moved the M4A1 about as it roared, spewing out bullets and brass from the appropriate orifices. It moved high and to the right, forcing me to shift it back to the door I was aiming at.

The carbine clicked on empty. For all the damage I had done, the doors hadn't yielded. They had absorbed every bullet in my magazine and remained intact. The bullets remained lodged in the material, useless. The fucking doors weren't ordinary glass; they were bullet-fucking-proof.

That was all right.

"What the hell was that?" Anderson shouted, turning to face me.

"The doors are locked, and they're bulletproof!"

"Shit!"

"I think Chan's M203 grenades will work!"

"Worth a shot. Chan!"

"Sir?"

"Got any more M203 HE (High Explosive) grenades left?"

HE was a misnomer. It was developed to blow up soft-skinned vehicles, notably trucks and jeeps. The ones we were using were prototypes developed for the US Army.

"Yup."

"Okay, use them against the glass doors. Stone, get clear!"

I looked around, seeing a car across the street. Running over to it, I leapt over the hood and crouched behind the engine block, the only part of a car that could theoretically stop a high-velocity rifle round.

A second later, there was a bright flash that lit the area, accompanied by a deep bass boom and shattering of glass. My ears rang again as I looked back at the hotel. The doors had been blown apart, glass shards decorating the interior of the lobby. So had the windows, succumbing to overpressure. The Peace Hotel's locked doors had succumbed to modern tools of war.

"Go, go, go!" Anderson shouted, running over to the entrance of the hotel.

"Incoming!" Bravo-1 shouted.

"What the hell!" I muttered, turning to face them. A rocket was coming our way.

I dove forward, going prone and turning my helmet to face the rocket, following my training. The others did the same.

An explosion echoed throughout the street, throwing out debris and glass shards. They were as lethal as shrapnel to unprotected flesh. A pair of objects lodged themselves into the back of my PASGT (Personal Armor System, Ground Troop) vest. Feeling around with my left hand, I removed two hot glass fragments from the Kevlar fabric before turning around.

The front of the hotel had virtually collapsed. A large, gaping crater had replaced the area above the doors. Fallen debris covered the front of the hotel, blocking off all access to it. The remaining windows had shattered and fallen, along with the façade.

I glanced around. Thompson was on his stomach, staring at me. A chunk of concrete missed Boehm's head by an inch or so. He stood up, unperturbed. Chan was watching our rear when the rocket hit, and was flung forwards for a foot or so, but was all right. Anderson was…gone…

I inspected the debris, and saw a rifle barrel sticking out of it, marking a grave.

Fuck it.

Turning back, I saw the other mercs run towards us, making their way behind the stopped car.

"What happened?" Kim asked from the right side of the trunk, turning to face me.

"A rocket hit the hotel. Anderson's down."

"I'm not going to mourn that asshole's death."

That was the last thing he would say. A long burst of machinegun fire roared through the night, sounding very much like an M240. A round or two took off the top of Kim's exposed head, showering the road with blood, brains and bone. He fell over.

Johnston was standing next to Kim. The car's glass windshield shattered, allowing bullets to slam into Johnston. He stood, transfixed for a second, as round after round slammed into his body. He collapsed after taking several rounds to the chest, and throat. He went down gurgling, air forcing its way through his torn throat and blood creating that horrific sound.

"All, this is Chavez. Kim and Johnston are down!" he reported over the radio.

I didn't freeze, couldn't afford to. Fear leads to death. "Take cover!" I shouted, running to the trunk of the car I was using for cover. Bullets whizzed by me as I moved, cracking windows and digging into walls. I saw a bright muzzle flash in the distance, moving and sending bullet after bullet into the area. The zombies went down like wheat succumbing to a scythe of hot lead.

"Pat! Take out the MG'er!" I yelled.

There was no way the machinegunner would be friendly. Judging by what he/she/it did, it didn't care whether we lived or died, and that made he/she/it hostile.

The sniper crawled up, over to the car in the street. Chavez was using the engine block as cover, probably the only reason why he was still alive. I looked at the shooter again. All I could make out was a shadow about eight feet high, firing a long machinegun. The streetlights around it had failed.

Meanwhile, Chan and Thompson were having problems on their end. They had moved around the corner, towards the zombies coming on our right flank, and started shooting at them. The sounds of gunfire moved steadily closer towards us, a nonverbal progress report. Rather, the lack of it.

"Hurry up!" I shouted at Boehm.

"Relax, man. You're too tense, you know?" he replied, placing the bipod of his rifle on the remains of the car engine block.

A metallic crash echoed throughout the area, coming from the left turn. The barricades had collapsed. Thompson reported that fact a second later. The machinegun spoke again, sending rounds down at us.

Boehm's M24 roared, sending a single hand-loaded .308 Winchester/7.62 mm NATO round towards his target. The muzzle flash angled itself upwards, and disappeared.

"Target down, center head. It's carrying the M240 Umbrella modified."

What the hell?

The M240 machinegun was developed by FN of Belgium as a support weapon on the platoon/company level. Unlike its predecessor, the M60, it worked. Umbrella took that design one step further by adding an extra-large muzzle brake to reduce recoil, a specially thickened barrel to cut down on overheating during sustained fire, and a large backpack full of ammunition that was connected to the weapon by a plastic chute. It contained a total of four thousand 7.62x51 mm rounds in total. However, the firearm was too heavy for troops to carry, and it was extremely difficult to reload the backpack, especially in combat. The idea was supposed to have been scrapped.

How the fuck did the gunner get its hands on _that_!

"Everybody, this is Stone. I'm taking charge. First, we regroup at the stopped car, and take what ammo we can. Then, we run down this street, and duck into one of the side streets. We'll decide what to do after we lose them," I said into the radio mike.

"Roger," everybody replied.

Running over to the mercs, I rummaged through the corpses. I came away with four spacer clips a box of machinegun ammo, and six fragmentary grenades. When the others arrived, I handed out the ammunition and grenades. I retrieved their dog tags as well.

"Okay, go!" I shouted.

Picking ourselves up, we rushed down the streets, leaving the corpses behind. We avoided the corpses on the street and the zombies behind, concentrating only on survival. We kept on running, boots splashing puddles of blood and gore.

I was the first the reach the machinegunner, spread-eagled against the floor, surrounded by a virtual flood of brass casings.

What the hell?

It couldn't be human. It had smooth, pale skin, almost albino, in fact. Its eyes were unnaturally large, almost like a cat's. There was a single, smoking hole in between its eyes, courtesy of Boehm. Its mouth was sealed into a robotic, almost menacing grimace. It had no hair to speak of. A pool of blood gathered around the back of its head.

It was dressed in a long, flowing black coat, still gripping the modified M240 in its gloved right hand and wearing its ammunition backpack. Its left hand was clad in a black leather glove, like its right. A discarded rocket launcher lay next to it. Judging by the design, it was a LAW (Light Antitank Weapon), meant for antitank purposes. The coat covered its legs, and it was wearing custom-ordered black leather shoes. I was right on its size. It really was eight foot tall. Damn…where the hell did this come from? How the hell did it get its hands on hardware like that? How the hell did it even know how to use them!

I ran down the street, followed by the others, the zombies hot on our trail. There had to be a side street, an alley, whatever, down the road, somewhere we could duck into and lose the zombies.

I hope.

Author's Note: I'm back, and have somewhat recovered from my writer's block. The beginning of this chapter may not make sense, unless you've read the previous chapter, updated fairly recently. In case you're wondering, no, the eight-foot tall monster ISN'T Nemesis.


	4. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Before I begin the story proper, I have a shoutout.

J.A. Swartz: I don't understand your review. I'm not an American, nor a communist, nor a woman.

Chapter 3: The Church 

2200 hours

We were…well, if not safe than at least out of danger for the time being.

After several minutes of running, we managed to duck into a wide alleyway, out of the zombies' sight, and possibly out of their minds. Hopefully. Chavez and Boehm blocked off the mouth of the alleyway with two nearby Dumpsters.

We gathered in a circle in the middle of the passage, and sat down, weapons still at the ready. A brief glance around revealed the fear and apprehension in everybody's faces. They were leaderless, and needed a new chief to lead the way. At least, some of them. The mercenaries from SpecOps units didn't.

"Okay people, this is what I think," I spoke.

"The mission is a clusterfuck. We're outnumbered, and have already lost three men. There is no hope of us clearing out the zombies from the city, not without more men, air support, artillery, tanks, maybe not even that.

"We've all been cut off from everybody. The powers that be didn't give us the frequencies of the other teams, so we can't contact them. Plus, TOC is now out of range of our radios. As far as I know, Anderson was carrying the radio that could reach TOC. There's no way we can get some sort of backup.

"Alpha-1's original mission was to rescue and resupply Bravo-1. That's all. We don't have to slog through Raccoon City; we don't have to clear it. I propose heading towards the extract point, and get the hell out of here. We don't clear the buildings, we don't do anything stupid, all we do is just survive until we are evac'd. Anybody with me?"

A Hobson's choice. There was no other way out. The Army had sealed off all routes in or out of Raccoon City, except by air. To clear the whole city with the five of us is suicidal, no matter what firepower we had.

The men saw that, and they all agreed.

"Okay. Let's take the fastest way out. According to my maps, we go straight down this alleyway, and travel in a straight line. We might have to detour through a few alleys, but it won't take long," I said.

We formed up again, and checked our gear. We recharged partially empty weapons, checked our pistols and ammunition, and redistributed our ammunition so that everybody had at least 300 rounds.

When that was done, the men lined up, and moved out. Traveling down the passageway, I noticed the grime and dirt-caked walls, covered with graffiti proclaiming all sorts of things. More rats scurried about, looking for anything they could feed on. In a city of the dead, only the animals thrive.

Leaving the alleyway, we came to an open street, and fanned out, covering all angles of fire while keeping our backs to a wall or a person. I looked around, seeing the remains of a concrete jungle. Houses and shops lined the streets, devoid of life and light. The streetlights provided amber patches of light, aiding the stars and moonlight.

Right in front of me was a church, a three-storey structure built of white-painted concrete and topped by a cross. The architecture was faintly European, with steep sloping roofs and solemn appearance. It used to be surrounded by a wooden fence, though it had collapsed in some places. The gate leading to it was locked, secured a sturdy lock, though it was unnecessary now.

My ears picked up a faint, feral growl at my 2 o'clock. Turning, I saw several dog-shaped shadows in an alley. They plodded deliberately towards us, coming out of the shadows and into the light. I raised my carbine, and so did the others.

Another growl came from my 11 o'clock. Even more dogs appeared out of a shadowy alley, and approached us menacingly.

Overhead, an unseen murder of crows cawed and shrieked, as though, and quite possibly, baying for living flesh and blood.

"On three, run for the church," I whispered, voice just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"One…"

The dogs started growling continuously. I spotted one of them in the light, barely fifty meters away from me. It had no skin, just muscles and sinews, tinted orange under the light.

"Two…"

They prepared themselves to pounce on us. I aimed at the head of the closest dog.

We were pre-empted. Before I could form the word 'Three', they leapt at us, barking wildly and jaws snapping.

"RUN!" I screamed, pulling the trigger, firing a three-round burst.

The three rounds struck through, lifting the dog and throwing it backwards several feet in a bloody spray. I saw its head snap back and dissolve as I started to move. The mercs fired, muzzle flashes and reports filling the air with fury and sound, rattling off long bursts. Some cries of pain were the mercenaries' only reward.

Charging forward, I made for a breach in the fence, as the crows started to dive. Instinct told me to sidestep; I did so, just avoiding a crow. I didn't bother shooting it; that was a waste of ammo.

Adrenaline coursed through me again, and everything went into a bizarre state of slow motion, as though someone had fast-forwarded and slowed down the current situation simultaneously. I dived through the gap, rolling as I hit the ground. Picking myself up, I made for the door, Chan and Boehm ahead of me.

Boehm reached the door first. He tried the door handle, discovering that the door was locked. He gave it a kick, but nothing happened. Chan and he slammed their body mass into it, to no avail. Finally, the Chinese-American withdrew his 17-in-1 kit, unfolded a knife blade, and jammed it into the lock.

"Cover me!" he cried, just as we reached him.

Turning around, I raised my carbine. The others had made it through, and followed me. I saw a dog leap through the air over one of the gaps in the fence, and pumped three rounds into its center of mass. The bullets dug into it, yawed, and burst out the other side, flinging it into the air.

Thompson's machinegun spoke, firing off burst after burst at the incoming dogs. Looking up, I saw the crows coming towards us. Placing the carbine's stock on my hip, I pointed it at them, and pulled the trigger, emptying carbine in one long burst, scattering the murder. A few of them fell from the sky, torn apart by the fusillade.

"Chan, any time now!" I shouted, reloading the M4A1.

"Almost…" he grunted.

A pair of dogs jumped through a breach. Aiming at the first one, I fired another three-round burst into it, slamming it into the ground and breaking its spine. Turning to the other, Chavez and I fired another burst at it, ripping it to shreds of blood and meat. Chavez reloaded his carbine with shaky hands, on the verge of panic.

"Done!" Chavez yelled, opening the doors.

We piled in through the entrance, Thompson providing a one-man rearguard with a withering barrage of gunfire. When we were through, he entered the church, and shut the door, just in time to hear a dog or two slam its head into the heavy door and break something.

Turning around, I beheld an unlit room, covered in shadows. The only light came in from the windows high above, not nearly enough to dispel the dark. I lowered the NVGs.

"…Anyone else here has NVGs?" Chavez asked.

"Me," I replied, switching the goggles on.

The world transformed into shades of green, allowing me to make out details. We were in the hall, or whatever the main room of a church was called. Aisles of chairs filled the middle of the room, in front of an empty stage and pulpit. An organ stood at the backstage.

The stink of death hung in the air, as though—

"Ugh…" something moaned.

I turned to face the sound, seeing a zombie get up from behind an aisle. Pointing the carbine at its chest, I fired a five-round burst at it, seeing it jerk around a little before collapsing.

"What was that?" Thompson asked.

"A zombie," I replied, "cover me. I'm going to finish it off."

Keeping my carbine raised, I walked over to it, ready to deliver the _coup de grace_.

There were several problems with the night vision gear we had. They had a limited field of view, since it only uses one lens to view everything. It also reduces vision to 20/40 or so. Finally, it is nearly impossible to aim anything with it on, unless one had iron sights. Unfortunately, the NVGs made aiming with the iron sights nearly impossible, thanks to its design.

I approached the 'dead' zombie. It was still twitching, despite the five smoking, bloody holes in its chest. I placed the muzzle of the carbine near its head, and pulled the trigger.

Without warning, Chavez screamed, his cries becoming liquid. Turning around, I saw a long…object…embedded in his chest. Turning to face its origin, I saw a four-legged creature matching Johnston's description, clinging onto the walls.

"Shoot where I shoot!" I shouted.

Raising the carbine, I fired a burst at it, and so did Thompson. The other mercenaries caught on, and fired roughly where we were shooting. It staggered under the force of the shots, but it didn't collapse. Instead, it dislodged itself from the wall, leaving a bloody trail. It landed on all fours, and started crawling towards me at high speed.

Biting off a mental curse, I fired another burst at it, sweeping its body as best as I could, seeing it approach me. Finally, it went limp. Walking over to it, I saw its cause of death: a destroyed brain. The other bullets penetrated its body, but remained lodged inside for one reason or another, so they didn't perform as advertised. As expected.

"What was that?" Chan asked.

"Anderson called it a 'Licker'. How's Chavez?"

"No good; he's dead," Boehm replied, examining his body.

"…Okay, take his NVGs and ammo. We'll have to push on."

Strangely enough, Boehm closed Chavez's eyelids, and made the sign of the cross before grabbing his dog tags. No time for proper mourning until we were home free, if ever. Then, he removed Chavez's NVGs and wore them.

"Okay, how do we get out of here?" I asked, recharging the carbine.

"I don't know. I think there's a back door somewhere," Chan replied.

The remaining four of us formed up, and made our way through the hall, keeping to the right wall. Keeping my carbine raised, I scanned for threats with my NVGs. Nothing.

Stepping forward carefully, we kept everything to a minimum; light, sound, noise, anything that may give our position away. My breath came in ragged spurts, anxious to refill my lungs before the next battle.

"Tango, 12 o'clock!" Boehm yelled.

Turning, I saw a zombie pick itself up. Then, I noticed that there were more bodies lying on the floor amidst the aisles, and some of them were getting up, too. Only one thing to do.

"Fire at will!" I shouted.

The four of us burst into a firestorm. Raising the carbine, I gunned down the closest zombie, seeing it collapse. Boehm's Uzi spat out a string of explosions, contrasting with the sharp chatter of the M4s and the roar of Thompson's machinegun. Time slowed just so, and everything became sharp and clear.

Rotating right, I shot down another zombie just as another man did the same, tearing off most of its flesh. Boehm was making continual headshots; his weapon could be aimed normally, NVGs or no.

A pair of zombies were chopped in half, and I fired a short burst at one of the survivors. It staggered backwards, and then its head snapped back, courtesy of a headshot. I turned my attention to an approaching trio of zombies, and fired off the hip, burning the rest of my magazine into them, seeing them fall under the scythe of lead.

I executed a speed reload, and looked up again, seeing another Licker approaching us. In the confusion, it had gone unnoticed, until now. I fired a burst at it, shouting a warning to the others.

Too late. The Licker's tongue shot out, and Chan screamed.

Something snapped.

"BASTARD!" Thompson screamed, temporarily forgetting where he was.

We focused our fire on that one monster, firing long bursts into it. A second later, its head virtually exploded, and it collapsed. Looking up, I saw a final pair of zombies moving towards us. I pointed the carbine at them, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

I slung the carbine over my shoulder, and drew the P1 on the right, going into a Weaver stance: one arm bent, one arm locked, one leg leading, one leg behind, and semicrouched. I focused on the front sight of the pistol, placing it over the head of the closer zombie, and started to squeeze the trigger.

The target disappeared. I looked for the other zombie, seeing nothing. Lowering the pistol, I saw the zombies were on the ground, dead, dying, whatever.

Holstering the pistol, I turned to the M4.

It was jammed, in this case a double feeding. Two rounds were stuck in the chamber, so neither would fire. Ejecting the magazine, I cocked the M4A1 several times, and saw the bullets fall out and hit the floor.

Then, I swapped the spacer clip within the carbine for a fresh one. Such a jam is caused by either faulty ammunition or faulty magazines, and it would be stupid to re-use a bad magazine.

I looked at Chan.

He was okay, after a fashion. He had sidestepped at the last second, so the tongue caused a clean in-and-out wound on the right side of his abdomen. It missed everything important, and Chan could walk, albeit with a lot of pain.

Removing his body armor, Boehm dressed the wound with Chan's personal first-aid pouch, and wrapped it up with a field dressing when the bleeding stopped. Boehm could not give Chan anything for the pain, since it would cloud his judgment. While Chan knew the reason, that did not mean that he liked that notion.

"Will he be all right?" Thompson asked.

"Yes…if he doesn't get hit again, and if we CASEVAC (casualty evacuation) him soon. The bleeding's stopped, but there's a high risk of infection. We need to get him out of here, and fast," Boehm replied grimly.

"All the more reason to get out of here. Tony, can you walk?" I asked.

"Barely…" he grunted, standing up.

"C'mon, let's go."

We continued our journey, in search of an exit

Killing is a sin, especially in a house of God. Perversely enough, the Bible contains many passages about war and death: David vs. Goliath, Jericho, the plagues inflicted upon the people of Egypt. Some times, it's enough to drive a man away from religion.

War is the ultimate judge of men and nations. Death is the end result, of course, death by the hands of men. Still…

Some things weren't worth thinking about.

There wasn't a back door at the left end of the church. Making our way through the dead and almost-living zombies, we crossed over to the right side, guns ready. Every time we saw a body twitch, we pumped it with several rounds. We never took any chances in the game of death.

Finally, I saw it. There was a door marked 'EXIT' at the extreme left end of the church. Making our way there, I tried the door. It was locked. Looking at the lock, I noted that it was a dead bolt.

Still, there was another way…

"Howard, think you can kick this door down?"

He walked over to me, and inspected it through his night sight.

"Yeah. The door's made of wood, and the hinges look like they're rusty. Only one way to find out," he said.

Taking several steps back, he took a deep breath. Then, he charged at it, achieving his maximum velocity just short of the door. At the last second, he lashed out with his boot, targeting the right side of the door.

The door came off its hinges with a massive _BANG_, and a long vertical crack developed on the left side of the door. The section attached to the dead bolt stayed where it was, while the rest fell backwards, yielding to Thompson's strength.

Squeezing through the door, we entered another back alley, in a city full of back alleys. This one was lit by electric lights mounted on the walls, about twelve feet high up. There was a red-painted metal gate at the far end, beckoning us.

We formed up again, and walked towards it.

John Milton once said, "Long is the way and hard that out of Hell that leads up to the light."

He didn't account for this situation.

Author's Note: I'm back. Sorry for the delay; I had a case of writer's block, and I have to juggle many tasks at once. Unfortunately, I need reviews, preferably constructive criticism. I won't have much time next year to write, so I need to know whether or not I can continue with this story.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Detour 

2215 hours

We filed through the alley, weapons up and sweeping the area. I kept the M4A1 trained on the gate, finger ready to jump to the trigger. A pair of windows flanked our sides, possible portals to hostiles beyond. After all, the zombies could crash out of the windows any time.

The moon was still one of death, full and pale, as though it had not been satisfied by the deaths caused today. I was already sick of death, at least in the numbers caused today. Perversely enough, I was still itching for battle.

I arrived at the gate without incident. As I prepared to open it, I heard a shout from behind, a glass window shatter, and a gunshot. I turned around, raising my carbine.

A pair of zombies had burst out of a window, surprising Chan. He had fallen to the ground, and was orienting his carbine towards the undead. The zombies leaned out, hungry for blood.

Whipping up his Mini-Uzi, Boehm raked the zombies with 9mm bullets, ensuring that he was shooting towards the wall and not me. Chan pointed his M4 and sprayed a long burst of 5.56x45mm NATO rounds into the two monsters. The undead flailed about in the deadly hail, disintegrating into chunks of flesh and blood.

I ran to Chan, and looked at his supine figure. Visually, he was all right. However…

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah. Just bruised a little is all."

I looked at his M4.

"Before you fired that burst, you fired once, right? Why?"

"Well…not really," he admitted. "When I fell on my ass, the stock of the M4 hit the ground, and it discharged."

Slam-fire. A sharp blow to the stock had caused the energy to be transmitted to the firing pin, which struck the primer of the bullet in the chamber, thus firing it. Usually, though, this only occurred to old or poorly designed firearms…

"How old is your M4?" I enquired.

"Eh…about four years old" was his not-so-unexpected reply.

"That figures. Your gun's pretty old, considering. You just had a slam-fire. Get your carbine replaced when we leave Raccoon City."

"If," Thompson replied.

"Yeah, yeah…oh shit!" Chan exclaimed.

"What?" Boehm asked.

"My NVGs. They've slipped off."

"Damn. Well, let's look for it, then," Chan muttered.

He was still standing, but he had gone pale, and winced when he was done speaking.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, let's just look for it."

"Okay…" I replied hesitantly. There was something about him that didn't seem right…as though he were changing from within.

Looking down, I only saw concrete ground. I scanned the area, seeing nothing. Where the hell was the—

_CRUNCH!_

"What the fuck!" Thompson exclaimed, looking down at his feet.

The remains of a pair of AN/PVS-7 night vision goggles lay at his feet, separated into its component parts by sheer brute force. Its innards were scattered all around, dashing all hopes of mounting a field expedient repair.

"Well, shit," he remarked.

"Fuck it," Chan spat. "Why the hell did you break the goggles?"

"Sorry, man."

"Shit…"

We left the passage without incident, and stumbled out into another road, mercifully free of hostiles. Crossing the street, the radio came to life.

"Alpha-1, this is TOC. Do you copy, over?"

What the hell? TOC was out of range…

Pressing the push-to-talk switch, I replied, "TOC, this is Alpha-1. We read you, over."

No reply. I tried again, but nothing happened. Half a minute later, TOC continued.

"Alpha-1, if you're listening, and are unable to send anything to us, you're probably out of range, unless your primary radio is still intact. In case you're wondering, we've had to boost the radio signal to get to you. Listen carefully.

"This mission has been scrubbed. Umbrella is withdrawing from the area. An unknown party has shot down the original dust-off chopper. No survivors reported. We're executing a mass evac at 0400 hours tomorrow, at the cross junction of 3rd Boulevard and Tale Avenue. We'll be using a pair of Chinooks, and we've only got one chance to get everyone out.

"The Army is moving in at dawn to clear out the city. They'll precede it with a massive artillery bombardment and air strikes at selected area. The first bombardment begins at 0630 hours. You need to get out before then, or risk being hit by the Army's barrage.

"We don't have permission to fly in air support for you guys, and there won't be an armored convey to ferry you out. The only escape route is via the evac choppers. You need to make your way there by yourself. Good luck, and Godspeed."

"Great. What now?" Chan asked.

"Well, we head for the site. We just have to keep on going straight, last time I checked. Chan, can you make it?" I asked, turning to him.

"No way out but through, kid. Let's go," was his tired reply.

'Kid'? He never used the word before…

Making our way through the gate, we emerged outside the alley, in the middle of a city street. Amazingly enough, there were no zombies in our immediate vicinity. Scanning the area, I saw a basketball court opposite the street, at the corner of a right bend. It was surrounded by a broken chain-link fence, and its gate had been forced open. A pair of streetlamps illuminated it, revealing a pair of bodies on the ground. Pools of blood gathered around their foreheads.

We cautiously crossed the street, weapons scanning for targets.

The court itself was a sad old thing, though it still endured. It was built of concrete, weathered and cracked over the years, with white lines painted to denote sections. The hoops were still intact, still retaining their coat of red paint. Graffiti markings covered some sections of the place, screaming nonsense and gang signs. An overflowing rubbish bin sat silently at a corner, waiting for something to happen.

Out of the shadows in front of me, a man materialized, catching us all by surprise.

"Contact front!" I shouted, raising my carbine.

All of us trained our weapons on him, fingers curling around triggers.

He raised his hands.

"Gentlemen, I am no zombie," he said, in a low, almost singsong voice.

I inspected him. He was wearing an expensive black trench coat and deeply polished black leather shoes, immediately reminding me of a dozen Hong Kong action films and a hundred Hollywood movies. He had a tall, thin frame, with deep-set black eyes and dark hair. There was a large obsidian ring on his right hand, perhaps the only affection for luxury he had, coat notwithstanding. A smile flickered across his face.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Trent, and I'm a…_friend_," he replied.

"Right," Chan answered.

"I've a proposition for you."

"Do we have a choice?" I wondered out loud.

"Not really. Your colleague, Sergeant Anthony Chan, has been wounded, no? A virus is now coursing within him, turning him into a zombie."

"How do you know?" he demanded weakly.

"I just do," he replied, adding a touch of mystery to his voice. "I'm sure you know why Raccoon City is now infected…"

"Yeah. Some disgraced ex-STARS personnel accidentally released a biological bomb in the area," I replied.

"Close enough to the truth, I guess. In reality, Umbrella is at fault. It maintains a…division called White Umbrella. It is responsible for developing biological weapons. When this crisis started, a scientist accidentally spilled a virus container in Umbrella's underground labs. This is the end result," Trent said, matter-of-factly.

"What the hell?" we shouted.

"You don't have to believe me now, gentlemen. The virus spreads by both contact with infected blood, and by inhalation. That's right; you and I are breathing in the virus as we speak, though infection by aerosol is considerably slower than being bitten or direct blood transfer."

"So…we're all doomed, then?" Chan asked, a fatalistic smile on his face.

"No. A vaccine has been developed to counter this virus, although it is also effective as a cure, with a 99.9 success rate. It is called 'Daylight'. Umbrella has stored it in the local hospital. To save all of your lives, you need to retrieve the antivirus and inject yourselves with it."

"What about you?" I asked. "Don't you need it?"

"I do, but for other matters. The only way in now is via the backdoor…at least the fastest way. The Daylight samples are located in the Director's office, on the top floor. It's in his safe, under his table. To open the door, you need a special key card. The code to unlock the safe is inscribed on the underside of the card.

"The elevator is locked using voice-recognition technology. To unlock it, you need a doctor or a nurse to speak into its mouthpiece, or at least a recording of the voice of such a person."

"So how will we go in, then?" Thompson asked.

"I have the tools necessary to bypass these obstacles. But, I will only agree to let you have them if you provide a sample of Daylight for me. There should be enough to immunize all of you."

"…All right, then. We accept the mission," I replied for all of us.

"Excellent. Should you succeed in your task, I'll be able to provide a helicopter to evacuate all of you from the city before the scheduled evacuation," Trent said, passing me a keycard and a digital recorder. I had no wish to know how he had gotten his hands on those. The underside of the keycard read "3567235".

"All right, thank you," I replied, stuffing my empty pockets with the equipment.

Reaching into my pocket, I extracted my PDA. I flipped it open, and discovered that the front cover had broken off from its hinges. Dammit. Must have been from the fall when we were ambushed by the machinegun-wielding monster.

I pressed the power button. Nothing happened.

I pressed it again. It failed to activate.

"What the hell!" I exclaimed.

"If you're wondering, your personal digital assistant hasn't really been tested to military specifications. There's a very high chance of them breaking down after taking a hard fall," Trent said, before I could say anything.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I just do. Incidentally, the eight-foot tall creature you've encountered is a creation of White Umbrella, codenamed 'Beast'. It was meant to be the perfect killing machine: strong; intelligent enough to use weapons, learn from experience, and obey orders; self-healing; and soulless. It originally had a camera mounted on its shoulder, and a computer chip in its brain to monitor it.

"It was controlled via radio commands from TOC. However, after insertion, it suffered some sort of trauma to the head, possibly by a falling concrete block. The computer chip broke down, and the camera was forcibly removed. It is now wandering the city, killing everything it sees."

"How do we kill it, then?" I asked.

"I have no idea. It was designed to be able to regenerate any organ that has been damaged, no matter how severe, be it the heart, brains, whatever. Maybe you can try blowing it up with high explosives…you're Peter Stone, aren't you?" Trent asked suddenly.

"Who wants to know?"

"Stone…I remember you. You're from Project Omega Warrior."

How the hell did he know?

Omega Warrior was a project initiated by a branch of Umbrella to create the perfect warrior using gene therapy and genetic engineering. I was the reluctant candidate they have chosen. They changed part of my DNA structure, added in a few genes, removed some genes…all with equipment that should belong in a science fiction movie. The end result: fast reflexes, extra strength, and an extra-powerful adrenaline boost, to the point where time seems to slow down when adrenaline flows through my veins.

"You're probably wondering why you were chosen. It's pretty simple. You're the best soldier Umbrella has to offer. You obey orders, no matter how stupid they are; you are already gifted with a predatory mindset; and you have the strongest mind the project managers have ever seen," Trent said.

What the fuck?

"What was he talking about?" Boehm asked.

I explained the gist of Omega Warrior to the men, and slowly, they understood.

"Well, Stone, seems to me that you've done pretty well up to this point. I'll see you later."

"Wait!" I shouted.

Trent ignored me, walking into the shadows and disappearing from sight.

"So what now, Pete?" Chan asked.

"…We detour to the hospital. Who has a working PDA?"

Author's Note: My life is becoming increasingly busy, to the point where chapters have to become shorter and shorter, and intervals between chapter postings longer and longer. I can only say this: I will not compromise on quality. I hope you can understand. Trent is not my creation; he's an original character of Stephanie Danielle (S. D.) Perry, a writer who has produced several RE novellas to this date. All credit goes to her.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Hospital 

2338 hours

It took us a little over an hour to reach the hospital. Keeping to the side roads and off the main roads, we encountered little resistance. We met three zombies (all killed by Chavez), a pair of dogs (which Boehm eliminated), and one of the leaping, four-legged monstrosities (which we blew apart)…and that was all.

Proper tactics are the key to warfare. When outnumbered and outgunned, direct confrontation is suicidal. Why Anderson had been deliberately driving us towards unfair (for us) fights is beyond me. What's he really doing? Trying to kill us?

We found ourselves in the basement parking lot of the town hospital. We assumed a wedge formation, a reverse 'V' with me at the apex, weapon scanning for any hostiles. We could not afford to let our guard down, not even once: Murphy would sic the opposition on us the second we did that.

Fluorescent lights above our heads provided illumination, dispelling the darkness of night. But with light comes shadow; the brightest light casts the darkest shadow. This is natural: everything is balanced, be it light and dark, good and evil…and life and death.

Rows and rows of cars filled the lots around us, an almost orderly throwback to the days of civilization in this city. None of them would be claimed of course; Umbrella had probably killed the owners by proxy, or the US military would. At the far end of the parking lot was the lift lobby of the basement, the only way we could head upstairs.

Something wasn't right.

There were no signs of life, but still…there was something…something in the air that contradicted my sight, but—

—A pair of bodies rolled out from behind a car—

—I brought my M4A1 to bear—

"We're friendly!" I shouted, recognizing the figures' gear.

They were Umbrella mercenaries; I could tell by their equipment. They stood up, allowing us to see their faces…

"Lieutenant Anderson?" I asked.

Anderson nodded, a wry smile forming on his lips. He was all right, looking exactly the same as he had when he had last seen him, albeit coated with a thin layer of dust.

"In the flesh," he replied, nodding.

"Why are you—" we started.

"Remember the LAW?" Anderson interjected. "It destroyed the façade of the hotel, but that's all. I dived through the opening, and avoided the debris. I managed to lose my carbine in the process, so…"

He raised his left hand, now gripping his Desert Eagle.

"I hooked up with Sergeant Nikolai Ginovaef here a few blocks away, and made our way here. We heard reports that there was a small group of mercenaries holding out here, so we decided to investigate."

I looked at Ginovaef. Unlike Anderson, Ginovaef proclaimed that he was a non-commissioned officer through his standing and aura. Contrary to public belief, NCOs are the backbone of every army, not the officers; NCOs have done a hell of a lot more than ossifers ever have…not that they'll take the credit, of course.

Ginovaef was decidedly taller than Anderson, standing at roughly 5'9". His Eastern European roots were evident in the shape of his cheekbones and nose: they were more pronounced and had a fine structure than most people of European decent. His hair was graying, but his face was still firmly muscular, as well as the rest of his body, like an old warhorse that simply refuses to die, and thrives on battle, nothing more, nothing less.

"So, why are you here?" Ginovaef asked, his voice spiced by a slight Russian accent, or so it sounded like.

"We were chased here," I lied. "A horde of the monsters were chasing us, and we shook them off. We ran here for cover."

Something told me that I shouldn't trust them.

"Very well. Care to join us?"

I nodded. "It's not as if we've anywhere else to go."

"So be it," Anderson agreed.

Both mercenaries turned around, and headed toward a door at the far end of the parking lot. I heard them whisper something to each other as the rest of us caught up with them.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. My heart started pumping, so loud that I heard my heartbeat in my ears. A strange, overpowering sensation overcame me, one that screamed 'GET DOWN!'

Suddenly, Anderson twisted his upper torso, and let something in his right hand fly. A spherical object traversed the space between him and me. Both mercenaries dived for cover. It landed at my boots, before I realized what the hell was happening—

—"GRENADE!" I screamed—

—_What the hell!—_

_—_I lunged to my right, behind a car. I kept my body ramrod-straight, minimizing the exposed area of my torso. Landing on the hard, dusty concrete, I covered my helmeted head with my hands, carbine temporarily forgotten, when—

—I didn't so much as hear as _feel_ the grenade's explosion, a tidal wave of raw energy that flowed through my body, screaming through my muscles and nerves. It traveled from my boots to my legs to my torso to my head, roaring like an ancient, feral beast.

Shaking my head, I heard the sound of gunfire, muted _pop_s, _crack_s, and a long stream of gunfire, all around me.

Snatching up my M4A1, I groggily got up, taking refuge behind the shrapnel-racked car's rear door, its glass now shattered. Through the Aimpoint sight, I saw both Ginovaef and Anderson run for the door, taking turns to turn around and squeeze off a few rounds at us. I managed a couple of wild bursts before Ginovaef's rounds whizzed past my ear, too close for comfort. I ducked, hearing bullets slam into—and pass through—the doors, like a red-hot poker blowing through a sheet of paper.

Sticking my carbine up and through the shattered windows, I blindfired a burst, spraying in the pair's general direction without caring where the bullets went, firing in the hopes that I would hit something, anything, firing in the hopes of stopping them. Hot brass casings flew out of the ejection port, landing on my sleeves and bouncing off.

After a few moments, I stood up, shouldering the carbine.

It was no use; they were gone.

"Fuck!" someone swore.

"Anybody hit?" I called, turning.

The sight told its tale. Chan was dead. The flying fragments tore up his face; it was now no longer recognizable as human, bearing closer relation to a bloody chunk of mincemeat. His body armor stopped most of the shrapnel directed his way, but it eventually gave way. It had to. His right arm had been severed and mangled, and the rest of him had received almost the same fate.

"Me," Boehm muttered, rising from behind a parked SUV. "I was grazed by a bullet."

"Motherfuckers," Thompson spat, rising from the sea of blood on the concrete. "Motherfuckers goin' to pay for this."

"Yeah," I agreed. "But if we want to do that, we have to catch up with them. Let's go."

The three of us left Chan's body behind. Dead was dead; nothing we did would be able to change that. Mourning and sadness would come later; the mission always takes top priority. Rage, not grief, filled my mind, a cold, focused, yet white-hot spike in my brain.

I hated it.

I welcomed it.

There was no need to search Chan's corpse. The shrapnel had destroyed everything of worth to us. That much was clear from the damage the grenade had wrought. We instead pressed on, in pursuit of the traitors. Revelations like this were hard to forget, even harder to forgive, and impossible to ignore without any answers.

Time seemed to take on a life of its own. It seemed to stretch, yet contract, dilate, yet accelerate, dissolving into a treacle of reality. I crossed the distance to the door within the minute, though it felt like a lifetime. Boehm and Thompson were following me, sweeping his individual field of fire.

The room beyond was a lift lobby of sorts. On the right was a pair of closed elevator doors. Looking up at the numbers indicating its position, I saw that it was heading up, to wherever Anderson and Ginovaef wanted to go.

In front of me was a flight of stairs. Without saying anything, I led the way into the stairwell. It was flooded with light, highlighting the blank white walls, and nothing more.

We took pains to move tactfully. I took point, Thompson was behind me, and Boehm was the rearguard. Ascending the first flight of steps, I covered the upper landing, keeping to the outer edge of the stairs. I sliced the pie where necessary, minimizing my profile while maximizing my angle of fire by leaning around corners and moving where necessary.

We climbed a pair of flights of steps this way, without any interruptions. On the first floor, I turned, looking at the next flight…

…And saw that it was blocked. Part of the wall had fallen; debris lay strewn across the steps. Rough, jagged hunks of stone lay silent and still forevermore, silently mocking us from where they were.

"Damn!" I muttered.

"The hell?" Thompson agreed.

"Looks like a bomb," Boehm evaluated, catching up with me. "See the edges and crater? Those are characteristics of a medium-sized charge of explosives. I'm calling it five pounds of C4, maybe a little less."

"The hell you talking, Pat?"

"I underwent demolitions training in addition to weapons handling while in the Special Forces," he explained. "They taught me how to analyze damage caused by explosives. Whoever set this off doesn't like us…"

"The elevator, then," I decided. "Follow me."

I pointed to the door on the landing, marked 'FIRST FLOOR'. We stacked next to it, remembering our Close Quarters Battle training. As point, I stood on the left side of the door. Boehm was beside me. Thompson was opposite me, covering the door with his Mk 46 Mod 0.

Reaching for the doorknob, I rotated it with my left hand, and gently swung it open into the room beyond. There was no reaction. Slowly, I leaned around the doorframe, looking out into the room.

Rather, a corridor flanked by metal lockers. Only this, and nothing more. I stepped into the corridor, the stock of the M4A1 planted firmly in the hollow of my shoulder, finger safely off the trigger. Slowly, deliberately, I walked down the length of the corridor, the others following.

I swept the carbine from side to side, watching for any trace of the enemy. I could smell them, a faraway rotting odor that was their calling card. They were somewhere out there, hungering for flesh and blood. My heart started to slow down, but it pumped harder, so hard that I could feel it in my chest, expanding and contracting.

At the end of the corridor was a turn. I called for a halt using my left hand, then crouched and approached the corner. The stink of death grew clearer and sharper as I approached the source. Bringing my weapon up, I peeked around the corner, the Aimpoint's red dot superimposed over my field of view.

I was right. Beyond the corridor was the lobby of the hospital. Congregating in the middle were four zombies, idly slouching, waiting for one of their number to die in order to feast on his remains.

Turning back, I signed with my hands what I had seen, and worked out a battle plan with the others. Seeing them agree, I returned to the corner, and reached for a fragmentary grenade. I pulled the pin, and dislodged the safety spoon. I held both in my left hand, counting down the seconds I had left.

_One thousand…two thousand…_

I lobbed the grenade towards the zombies as hard as I could, placing it right in the middle of the gathering.

_Three thousand…four thousand…five thousand…six thousand…seven thousand…eight thousand…nine thousand…ten thousand…_

_What the hell?_

A dud. Of all things, a dud, at this point of time! If I find Mr. Murphy of Murphy's Law, I'm going to kill him. He's caused us enough grief already.

I stormed the lobby, carbine up. I fired a quick burst at the nearest zombie's head, seeing it blow apart in a riot of red. Time slowed allowing me to see his head collapse into itself. I moved right, knowing that the others would fan out.

Scanning, I saw that there were really eight zombies, now seven, standing about a collection of furniture. They lunged towards us, arms outstretched, moaning and groaning. Thompson let loose a long burst of 5.56mm NATO, scything through three of them. One of them fell on the ground, and was promptly lifted up a muffled, muted explosion from under him. Scarlet blood exploded out from the back of his torso, painting the lobby red. The dud was finally exploded, too late to do any real damage.

Another approached me, stumbling in its eagerness. Aiming, I fired another burst, taking its head off in a scarlet cloud. It stood, suspended in my perception of time. I found another target, and shot him in the head, too, seeing him twist around ever so slowly, brains and blood flying from the remains of his skull. I switched targets, and saw my intended victim fall to a group of 9mm rounds to the face and a stream of 5.56x45mm fire. I fired a burst at the last one's face, seeing it vanish. A trio of 9m rounds followed, and then a stream of 5.56x45mm rounds to its chest threatened to push it down.

Time resumed.

All the standing corpses fell to the blood-soaked ground, hitting it at roughly the same time. If anything, this proves Newton was right: gravity is a constant that acts on all bodies equally.

I looked out though the main door. The night was getting darker and darker, as the shadow of death consumed Raccoon City. I couldn't see much beyond the glass door, save for a streetlamp. Its lighted area revealed nothing of note, nothing worth investigating.

Just as well: we had something else to do. Boehm found the controls to the lift behind me. Slumped against the controls was a dead doctor, a bullet in his head. It was probably out of mercy; his skin was showing signs of decomposition.

The elevator had stopped at the third floor. Looking at the controls, I saw a speaker and a light bulb under the normal up/down controls. The light was on, a bright emerald green that flashed under the bright white light. Hazarding a chance, I pushed the up button.

The lift responded, descending from wherever it was.

"You know where the Director's office is?" Boehm asked.

"It's got to be at the top floor. It's always the top floor; that's where the big shots always are," Thompson replied.

Nodding, we turned our attention to the lift. I recharged my weapon, not knowing what to expect. Staying crouched, I trained my carbine on the closed doors, ready to spray the elevator car full of lead if necessary. Thompson and Boehm covered the corridors and main door, unwilling to be caught by surprise.

A few silent moments later, the car halted, announcing its presence with an electronic chime.

The door slid open.

I raised my weapon.

Empty. The elevator car was empty. Tapping on Boehm's and Thompson's shoulders, I entered the elevator. As soon as the two mercenaries were inside, I pressed the button for the top floor, in this case, the fifth floor.

Fortunately, there was no muzak to deal with, just the humming of the elevator as it rose through the air. We trained our weapons on the door, fingers on the trigger and safeties set to full automatic.

"The hell?" Boehm muttered.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Someone on the third floor has called the elevator…"

"Fuck!" I swore. "It's probably Anderson and Ginovaef. If it is, spray 'em full of lead."

There is only one penance for betrayal: death. They had earned it, just for attacking us. An explanation would be nice, but if none were forthcoming, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

"Okay," they agreed, just as the door opened revealing—

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!" we cursed as one.

The Beast stood waiting for us, in all it horrid majesty.

_It was supposed to be dead! How the hell is it still alive!_

No time to think. I pointed at his groin and held down the trigger, walking a diagonal line of bullets up his coat. Tiny jets of purplish blood leapt out of his miniscule wounds, almost as though mocking my attempt to kill him.

In such a confined space, gunfire is amplified thousands of times over. When Thompson's weapon spoke, I was immediately deaf. Dozens of holes appeared in the Beast's body, jerking it ever so slightly with the passage of each bullet.

It reared its right arm back, in preparation for a right hook, its massive hand curled into a fist the size of a large ham. I dived forward, under its legs, rolling as soon as I touched the ground. I rolled over on my back, weapon up, aimed at its back.

I pulled the trigger and refused to let go, rounds roaring out of the muzzle on a one-way trip. They stitched up his back, throwing up little jets of blood. More explosions of blood erupted from his back as he threw his punch, stepping into the car.

Suddenly, I realized one of the flaws of the 5.56x45mm NATO. At such close quarters, the round will neither tumble nor fragment, instead blowing a clean hole about .224 of an inch in diameter in both sides of the target. This was the dreaded ice pick effect, so-called because it leaves a clean entry/exit hole, like that caused by the sharp end of an ice pick.

It bellowed, slamming its fist into something. I distinctly heard a loud _CRACK_, and immediately, I knew it was the sound of Boehm's skull caving in. Thompson swung his machinegun, still firing it, knowing that it was impotent in such a close space—

—and the elevator door closed forever, sealing both Thompson and the Beast within.

Thompson was as good as dead.

I lay supine on the floor, surrounded by brass cartridge casings. I sighed.

_Fuck it!_

_FUCK IT!_

How good many good men had died? How many? For what? FOR WHAT! What the hell are we doing here? To die? Why the hell did Command send us here anyway? Anyone with a brain would know that—

_—_A figure appeared in the corridor to my right.

"Freeze!" I challenged, aiming my carbine at it.

_She_, not it. A woman appeared, dressed in urban camouflage. I could tell by her breasts, two small lumps bulging out in the middle of her chest. She was wearing body armor and load bearing equipment, in addition a Kevlar helmet. In her arms was an M4A1, cradled in the same, easy fashion a professional totally at ease with his/her weapon.

"I'm on your side!" she replied, a touch of New York in her voice. She raised her aims, carbine swinging its sling around her neck.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, getting up, but still aiming my weapon at her. In a world of duplicity, anything goes. Every stranger isn't a friend you haven't met, but rather an enemy whose intentions you don't know. Umbrella had screwed us over already. This woman might be next.

"My name is Evelyn Zimmerman," she replied. "Like I said, I'm with you."

"How do I know?"

"Trent sent me to help out."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Look: lower your weapon and we'll talk, all right? There's no point going on if you don't trust me. Since there's only one of you here, I reckon the rest of your squad didn't make it. I can help you, but you have to trust me," she explained, putting emphasis on her last six words.

She had a point. Slowly, reluctantly, I lowered the carbine.

Author's Note: Sorry I hadn't updated in ten months. I've been busy with all sorts of things. I intend to finish this story by the end of the year. And then, I intend to retire from fanfiction writing, if only temporarily. Two years from now, I'm off to the Army, and I intend to finish writing all my stories (both at and before the order comes. Oh…and by the way…while I've played with the geography of the hospital in Raccoon City a little, though I intend to keep to the timeline of RE3 and RE: Outbreak as faithfully as I can.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Death 

October 1st, 1998

0113 hours

"Now, who and what the hell are you?" I demanded.

"Like I said; my name is Evelyn Zimmerman. I've been sent by Trent to assist you in your mission."

"Where're you from? You a mercenary?"

"I'm not!" she hotly denied. "Mr. Trent draws his agents from agencies all around the country. I was from the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) before working for him."

The accusation in her voice was justified. After all, I was little more than a gun-for-hire, selling my skills to the highest bidder. I didn't have a cause except for the pursuit of money and adrenaline, the same adrenaline rush that accompanies battle, the same one that assisted me in all my firefights to this date.

"Uh-huh. You know anything about me?" The question was delivered half-rhetorically. Her memorized answer surprised me even more than it should have.

"Yes. You are Peter B. Stone, thirty-six years old, formerly a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army Special Forces First Operational Detachment Delta. Before that, you were in the Special Forces, Rangers, and 89th Airborne Division. You saw action in Desert Storm, Restore Hope, and Just Cause. This is in addition to other deniable operations you participated in throughout the years.

"You were dishonorably discharged after a court-martial pertaining to your actions two years ago, during a classified operation that resulted in the deaths of a dozen civilians. Ever since then, you've become a mercenary and—"

"Enough! I believe you already," I interjected. I already knew what she knew about me, and I suspected that Trent knew more than he let on.

"Good. What else do you want to know?"

"Who're Frank Anderson and Nikolai Ginovaef? What are they really doing?"

"Anderson and Ginovaef are 'supervisors'. You see this mess we're in?" She spread her arms wide, theatrically turning a full circle. "This is all Umbrella's doing. Trent told you about the viral outbreak. What he didn't say is that Umbrella decided to take advantage of this. Embedded with every mercenary unit sent into Raccoon City is a supervisor, a man hand-picked by the higher-ups in Umbrella to gather data.

"You see, the T-Virus was originally envisioned as a synthetic medium that would allow the re-growth of human tissue after severe damage or removal. Umbrella, at least the bioweapon aspect of it called White Umbrella, decided that such a virus would be better suited for military applications. But, in order to see if it were as effective as envisioned, the supervisors were ordered to gather raw data and intelligence on the performance of the infected."

"How do you know?"

"I _am _a supervisor," she stated simply. "Just not working for Umbrella."

"Uh-huh."

I kept my mien as neutral as possible. Underneath, my mind churned and raged, thinking over Anderson's actions. The truth is always out there, in plain sight. We are all blind; we cannot see the truth unless it walks up to us and slaps us in the face, telling us that it is what it is. Anderson was trying to get us killed so that he could evaluate the performance of the T-Virus. By doing so, he had betrayed us all…and was worthy of only one possible fate.

Death.

"Anderson is heading for the Director's Office. His mission orders at this point of time are to retrieve the Daylight samples, and terminate everyone in his way. As I understand it, this is one of the only two stashes of Daylight in the city. The other is too far away to get at.

"Are you going?"

I shot to my feet, releasing energy from a coiled spring. She recoiled in shock, not comprehending how a man lying on the floor can be on his feet in a millisecond. I would have too, a lifetime ago.

"Let's go," I replied.

"Good. I know the hospital; I'll take point."

My ears registered some faint sounds from the corridor behind her, like bone scraping on metal.

_Click…click…click…click…_

Then, I heard an even fainter hiss.

"Take cover!" I ordered, heading for the corner.

"Wha—?"

"Fuck it!" I swore, keeping at an oblique angle to the mouth of the corridor. I grabbed her right shoulder with my right hand and kicked out at the back of her right knee, forcing her down. As she fell, I returned my hands to my carbine, and flattened myself against the wall.

"What are you—"

A long, narrow, slender, organic _thing_ shot out from the corridor, passing through where Zimmerman's chest would have been. As it withdrew, I saw that it was dripping _something_.

Shifting my carbine to my left shoulder and switching hands, I peeked around the corner, carbine up. A Licker greeted me with its sardonic smile, its oversized tongue slowly dancing in the air. I shifted my sights, planting the Aimpoint's red dot on its brain, and squeezed the trigger. The carbine bucked, dispatching a three-round burst that splattered the Licker's brains over the walls and floor.

"Sheeeeeit…" Zimmerman whistled, seeing what had happened.

"You sure you're a supervisor? You should know never to stand with your back to a corridor," I reprimanded, helping her to her feet.

"Damn…oh, well."

She led the way. Walking down the corridor, she covered the left side of the corridor, while I covered the right. We kept away from each other as much as possible, so that I wouldn't shoot her in the back by mistake.

Stepping over the Licker's corpse, she turned right, and I followed. I found myself in a long corridor, flanked by four doors on either side. At the end was a metal door marked 'STAIRS'. Zimmerman turned to me, using hand signals to tell me to clear each room. As a rule of thumb, no decent soldier leaves an uncleared room behind him; it's entirely possible that an enemy might burst out from behind him and shoot him in the back.

Nodding, I approached the first door, moving in a semi-crouch. I moved quietly, slowly raising and lowering my boot, capturing all sound in my feet, maintaining balance with my hips. I kept my M4A1 trained on the door at all times, my finger curled around the trigger. Reaching out, I turned the doorknob, and pushed it open.

The room beyond was a six-bed ward. None of the beds were occupied, and all had been made. Medical equipment stood next to every one, waiting for a patient that would never come. There was no sign of them having been used at all. There were no signs of life, in fact.

I backed out of the room, and closed the door.

_Click…click…click…_

I looked up.

Another Licker was crawling atop the ceiling, hanging upside down from the giant claws on each of its legs.

Instinctively, I raised my weapon and held down the trigger. The resulting fusillade swept across its blood-red skinless body, throwing out jets and clouds of scarlet liquid. It shrieked, disengaging itself from the ceiling. As it fell, I fired another burst, this time into its brains, blowing it apart.

The roaring thunder didn't go unnoticed. The other doors burst open, and more zombies staggered. Some were clad in doctor's coats, others were wearing nurse's uniforms, still more had the distinct green garb of patients. They staggered towards me, arms outstretched.

"Shit!" Zimmerman cursed, to my left.

I didn't try to reply. Instead, I gripped the carbine's stock under my armpit, raised its muzzle to roughly chest level, and fired.

Time is elastic. With every shot, it slowed down even more. My heartbeat slowed and reverberated in my head, becoming back of the background noise of gunfire and groans. The carbine vibrated and flared, responding to my will. Brass cartridges gracefully ejected themselves from the ejection port, traveling in a low arc before falling to the floor.

I was spraying the monsters. There was no need to aim: in a situation like this, every bullet would hit. The zombies felt the effect of the shots. They staggered backwards under the volume of fire, blood flying in clouds and streamers. Bullets tore into their bodies, into chests, arms, legs, and heads. Only headshots counted: Intelligence had told us that much. I advanced, unleashing a barrage of lead. One by one, they fell, heralded by more clouds of infected blood.

Then, the loudest sound in the world echoed in my head.

_CLICK._

The carbine was empty…and there were still more of them.

Ejecting the empty magazine, I inserted the next in line into the magazine well. I didn't ram it in, as Hollywood was wont to do; that would merely damage the mag. I pressed the bolt forward assist, seeing the rest of the monsters sluggishly shuffle forward in the sea of blood and bodies.

"Enemies to the rear!" Zimmerman shouted, her words clear and distinct, like the ringing of crystal bells.

"Head for the stairs! Blow through the ones in front of us!" I ordered.

There were four of them, still standing amidst the fallen. I snapped my carbine to the closest, and swept the remainder with a stream of bullets. They slowly danced and jerked, temporarily suspended in time, before starting to fall.

"Come on!" I urged, turning around.

Several zombies lay on the floor, bleeding. Even more were lurching towards us, hungry for our flesh and blood. There were so many of them that they jostled for space in the narrow corridor, occasionally knocking their fellows to the floor in their haste.

Zimmerman turned and ran as I provided covering fire. Again, I sprayed the advancing wall of the undead, slowly backing up. The sound of my shots started to fade away, becoming little more than a soft roar in my ears. My vision sharpened, so much that I saw faint wisps and zephyrs of smoke rise from my bullets' point of impact, mixing with the blood. Round after round tore into them, yawing and turning as they entered flesh that resided in the grey area between life and death. The front ranks of the zombies fell.

Something reached for my boot. Looking down, I saw a not-quite-dead zombie grasp my blood-soaked left boot, moaning softly. Swiveling my carbine, I fired a double-tap into its head at point blank, ending its existence.

Stepping over the zombies I had shot earlier, I backpedaled to the door, keeping my carbine firing. Its handguard grew hot, but I ignored it. As soon as the carbine was dry, I ejected the mag and reloaded.

I looked over my shoulder. Zimmerman was in the stairwell, peeking around the right side (her right) of the doorframe.

"Go! I'll cover!" she shouted.

Turning around, I sprinted towards the door, stepping over the zombies. I kept to the right (my right) of the corridor and kept as low to the floor as possible, maximizing her angle of fire. Puddles of blood splashed as I landed each boot, splattering over their sides. She fired, sending a broken line of lead down the corridor, its walls funneling her rounds to her targets.

As I approached, Zimmerman swung back, clearing a path. I stepped through the open doorway and turned around. Through the passageway, I saw the zombies approach, still full of vigor. Even now, some were picking themselves off the floor, recovering from the shock of ballistic insult.

Reaching into my pouches, I removed a pair of fragmentary grenades. Pulling the pin on the first, I threw the bomb into the melee. I did the same for the other. While both were sailing through the air, I found a pair of grenades, armed them, and threw them into the mix.

Zimmerman shut the door.

"Let's go!" she shouted, keeping away from the door. I stepped clear of the doorway, flattening myself against the wall. The corridor would funnel the combined explosive force of the grenades into a column of heat and kinetic energy that would be vented on both sides of the corridor; standing in front of the door is suicidal.

Time decided to return to normal. I heard the grenades go off sequentially, one muted _BANG_ after the other. The door shook and shuddered in its frame with each explosion. The ceiling and walls vibrated, transferring energy from one point to another. The door visibly bulged outwards, just barely containing the force of the blasts.

Then, silence flooded in, filling jagged spaces.

"You okay?" I asked.

Zimmerman nodded. "Yeah. You?"

"I'm okay," I gasped.

Omega Warrior is a double-edged sword: the body suffers extreme trauma if it does too much in too little time. My muscles were now screaming at fever pitch. My lungs threatened to collapse completely. I took deep breaths, in and out, recovering from the demands I had placed on it. I was starting to feel dizzy, signs of oxygen deficiency. Sweat poured down from my helmet, and for the first time, I felt the sweat on my uniforms, adhering my body armor and my clothes and my skin together.

"No, you're not."

I didn't have the breath to argue. Instead, I lay against the wall, slumped against the cool concrete, completely and totally exhausted. I really couldn't care if there were any more zombies left, I didn't care if we were assaulted, and even if I did, I was in no shape to hold them off. I lay panting and gasping, trying to pull my body together.

Zimmerman covered the door. I wanted to tell her that it was pointless. The hinges had been wrecked; the door simply would not swing. I didn't. I couldn't. I was too busy panting and gathering my breath.

As soon as I could breathe more easily, I got up. My muscles protested, but I ignored them. I had to; I still had a job to do.

"Let's go," I wheezed.

"No."

"We still have a job to do…can't let Anderson get away with the Daylight," I muttered.

Before she could protest, I shouldered my carbine, and headed up the stairs. My chest was heavy and wracked with pain, but I could not stop. I had to go on. The mission demanded as much.

The climb upstairs was uneventful. Once more, we took turns covering each other as we headed up the stairs, weapons ready to fire…not that we needed them now. We twisted and turned, following the outer edge of the stairs, eventually reaching the top floor.

There was a single door at the top, next to the stairs. Zimmerman stood on the right of the door, her boots planted firmly on the stairs. I prepared myself, standing on the left of the door, breathing heavily, muscles burning. By unspoken consent, she was the first person in; I wasn't at top form.

We nodded at the same time. She moved in front of the door, covering it with her carbine. Then, she opened the door, flinging it open and bursting in. She sidestepped to the left, allowing me to storm in.

We were in another corridor, which opened out into a larger room beyond. Keeping to the left of the corridor, Zimmerman led the way. I played rearguard, covering the door behind us in case something or someone decided to pursue us.

I was walking backwards, training my carbine on the door, when Zimmerman fired a burst.

I turned around.

Lying on the ground in our line of fire was a mercenary. Zimmerman had aimed too low; blood was pouring out of his right arm. His left hand reached for his wound, and I noted the huge pistol grasped in it. It was a Desert Eagle, with the same scope Anderson was using. I aimed at the fallen body with my carbine, and fired another burst up his torso. He screamed.

I never liked showdowns: they were fair fights. Zimmerman and I approached the fallen mercenary, already knowing who he was. I kept my finger on the trigger; if Anderson showed signs of life, he would receive another burst.

I inspected the merc, towering over his supine form. It was Anderson, of course. He was the only albino mercenary in the Umbrella's employ. His facial features and voice merely confirmed what I knew. He was still breathing, unfortunately; his left arm had taken a couple of the bullets meant for his chest, and the others missed his vital organs.

His red eyes flashed in recognition as he registered my face.

"You," he hissed.

"Me," I agreed. "Where's the Daylight?"

"It's…with me…in my…pouches," he gasped. He was going to die; he knew that I knew that. After he died, we'd search his body anyway. There wasn't any real point in resistance, not for something like this.

While Zimmerman rifled through them, I continued the interrogation. "Where's Ginovaef?"

"I don't know. He's probably on the third floor. He's dealing with an Umbrella mercenary who's holed up there. Ginovaef should have killed him by now."

_Shit!_

"What is he supposed to do in this mission?"

"…Just like...mine…he's a Supervisor…supposed to collect…data on the zombies…and other mutations…"

There was nothing more to ask him. Any real answers would have to come from Umbrella; he would have been kept in the dark about Umbrella's scope of operations. I should know; the US Army did the same to me. I looked at Zimmerman. In her hands was a small metal case, marked 'DAYLIGHT'. Opening it, she removed a small vial from a rack inside the case, and brought it to the light. The liquid within was a deep, calming blue, as blue as the open seas in daylight. She nodded at me.

Lowering the carbine, I fired three rounds into his face.

Author's Note: Merry Christmas, from Singapore to the world!


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Deus Ex Machina

0150 hours

"There are six vials here, two for us, four for Trent," Zimmerman pronounced, examining the contents of the case. "Unfortunately for us, we need a syringe or something in order to use it."

I frowned, then searched Anderson's corpse.

"What are you doing?"

"He would have known about the T-Virus' infectiousness, right? He would have taken something to vaccinate himself with."

"How do you know?"

"Instinct."

Opening a pouch, I discovered that it held a small plastic baggie holding a half-dozen disposable plastic syringes. I waved it in front of her eyes.

"See?"

She answered with her silence. I tore the bag open, and selected a pair of syringes at random. Passing one to her, I filled mine with a vial of Daylight. Holding the instrument up to the light, I inspected its contents, tapping out all the air bubbles I could see. Dying of disease after being cured of an incurable illness is one of life's many ironies, one that I did not care to experience.

Curling my right arm, I made a fist. The large vein in my arm bulged out, primed for a needle. Then, I relaxed, remembering something.

"How do you know if it's Daylight?" I asked.

"…We don't. If it isn't, then we either die here, or die later. Either way, it doesn't matter: we'll all die sooner or later."

Fatalism is infectious. Repeating the procedure, I stuck the needle into the vein, and pressed the plunger. The vaccine entered my bloodstream, accompanying the minor pain in my arm. I watched the blue liquid disappear into my body.

I expected to writhe in pain, vomit blood, or perhaps feel something as the biochemical took effect. I was disappointed. Tossing the used syringe aside, I stood up, and faced the elevator. Suddenly, the ground shivered and rumbled, from an explosion somewhere below us.

"What was that?" Zimmerman muttered.

"Hell if I know…" I looked up at the numbers above the elevators, and saw that it was going up…and it was already at the fourth floor.

"Incoming Tangos from the elevator!" I warned, snapping my carbine up, aiming it at the doors. My aching muscles made their agonies known to me, but I ignored them: I had more important things to do. Pain is the only thing that makes one feel alive.

The doors slid open.

The Beast stood in the car, grinning at us.

I took a millisecond to adjust my aim. Zimmerman fired anyway, spraying rounds into its torso, with no real effect. It charged at me, so fast that I scarcely had time to squeeze the trigger before I decided the hell with it and instead raised the carbine and lowered my helmeted head to intercept the Beast's incoming hammer fist—

The monster's brute strength had done what is nearly impossible: damage an actual weapon. Its hands literally broke through the carbine's plastic and metal assembly, destroying the Aimpoint sight, and ripping the M4A1 apart in a spray of metal and plastic shards.

The momentum of the assault pitched me forward, forcing me on my stomach. I rolled to the left, a habit born of countless sparring sessions over so many years. A heavy boot slammed into the ground where I used to be, shaking the ground and ceiling.

I rolled away a few more times, then halted. Suspending my legs in the air, I swept both in a full circle, intending to trip or attack anybody in their way. Feeling nothing, I landed them on the floor, and sprung to my feet. My back and calves and thighs roared, but I stopped caring about it.

Until I tumbled forward. My muscles had grown so weak that I could not support my body weight unconsciously. I stopped myself, then looked up.

Zimmerman had engaged the Beast. She was firing short bursts from her M4A1, using her superior agility to out-maneuver the creature. The bullets were probably only pinpricks to it, but they enraged it enough to provoke the Beast into charging her. She would sidestep at the last moment, and run to another corner.

I drew my right P1 from its tactical leg holster. Holding it in both hands, I watched its built-in laser play out from under its barrel. I shifted the red beam, tracking the Beast as it pursued Zimmerman. For a single, fatal moment, it halted. I placed the laser dot on its head.

I fired a double-tap.

Both .357 SIG rounds slammed into the back of its head, causing it to stumble forward.

But the bullets didn't kill it. Instead, it bellowed and turned around, with no obvious sign of damage. It rushed towards me, heavy footfalls tracking each step as it swung its massive fists.

The headshot it the most effective way to kill a man. Unfortunately, monsters were not men. I took a breath, released it, took another one, and let go half of it. I raised my pistol again, placing the dot between the eyes of the Beast, remembering my Delta training. It was rushing towards me, rushing towards its own death.

My genetic advantage had failed me: a failsafe had been implemented into it, preventing its activation when too much lactic acid was present in my body, produced through the exertion of muscles in strenuous work. That way, I wouldn't literally tear myself apart. All I had left was normal adrenaline, setting up a bubble of calm around me, allowing my to focus my shot.

I fired another double-tap.

The Beast took both shots between the eyes…and kept coming.

_FUCK!_

Reaching out, it grabbed my collar by its colossal left hand, and raised me up. It squeezed my throat, shutting off blood and oxygen to my brain. As I choked and strangled to death, my right hand decided to left go. My P1 fell from my useless fingers, clattering on the ground. The Beast snarled, expelling a breath of hot, rotten breath from its mouth. It raised its right hand, opening it into a palm.

The centre of its palm separated, forming a hole in the flesh. A purple, bloody, muscular tentacle snaked out of the orifice, waving at me. It was organic, yet hard, solid somehow, as though it was strong enough to drill through rock.

Staring at my imminent death, I remembered that I had two pistols. As my vision blurred and turned to red, I forced my weary left arm to draw. This it did, admirably well. My other P1 was in my left hand and in its face before either of us realized it.

Through my dying vision, I saw that the gun was pointed at its right eye. I fired once, sending a single bullet into that globe. Something exploded into a burst of purple. The Beast howled in pain, but kept its grip on me. Swiveling the pistol on my tired left shoulder, I fired another bullet into its remaining eye.

Blinded, it ululated, releasing me from its grip. I dropped, nearly losing my balance. It covered both its wounds with its hands, staggering away from me. Likewise, I scrabbled away from it, forcing myself to my feet.

My legs refused to hold my weight. My upper brain forced them to. Turning to Zimmerman, I shouted, "Fill a syringe with the Daylight!"

"What?"

I pointed at the monster, all pain on hold. "The Daylight! If it can cure us, it can kill it, too!"

"Okay!" she agreed, then reached for the syringes. Her hands worked dexterously, aided by the adrenaline in her system. The Beast was still staggering about, but was rapidly recovering from its wounds.

"Here!" she cried, throwing me a Daylight-filled syringe. It rotated and somersaulted in the air, cartwheeling as it traveled. I instinctively reached out and snatched it from the air.

The Beast roared, a powerful mixture of pain and fury. Aiming at its groin, I fired a double-tap, not to wound it, but to attract its attention. It turned to face me, not bothering to say a word. I shuffled to forward and to my right, almost too weak to move properly.

Its sense of sight gone, the Beast blew past me, intent on going after its antagonist. It landed haymaker after haymaker on nothing more substantial than air, producing nothing more than violent, short-lived winds.

Its back was exposed to me. Summoning what little reserves of strength I had left, I crouched, and launched myself at the Beast, syringe in my right hand. Reaching out, I placed my filled left hand on its massive left shoulder, and vaulted myself up. I stuck the needle into the base of its skull, and squeezed the plunger with one hand.

The Daylight vaccine vanished into the Beast's body.

The effects were immediate. It roared and howled as the Daylight took effect. I let go, and staggered aside. Remarkably, I didn't fall to my knees. I watched the Beast scream in anger and frustration, its thick arms windmilling. It hammered its own chest, then fell onto its back and rolled left and right, spasming and writhing.

The end took a long time, when you were the observer. To the participant, it was forever. It thrashed and turned, howling and moaning almost simultaneously, its head jerking in all directions. Its muscles started to shrink, exorcised of the T-Virus. Plumes of wet steam emerged from its decaying form, filling the air around it in a thick, purple fog. Slowly, surely, the flesh on it decomposed to little more than a black, dead mass, incapable of supporting life, now and forever.

With a final moan, it went still.

The Beast was dead.

I lay on the ground, gasping for breath. My muscles screeched in my brain, telling me that they had been abused too much, too many times. Normally, the human body ceases to register pain when it crosses a certain threshold, but this one's intensity was just under what was necessary for my brain to do that.

Zimmerman appeared in my face. "Want me to call for extract?"

I mouthed 'Yes'.

"What about Nikolai Ginovaef?"

My facial expression told the tale. There was nothing a man like he would have that was vital to us. He may be a Supervisor, but he wouldn't carry any vital intelligence, either written or in his head. Field people are always kept insulated from the higher command: if captured, they cannot reveal anything, because they don't know anything. I know: Umbrella's mercenary services are run along the same lines as the military.

"…All right…"

She turned away, and whispered some words into her own radio.

But I didn't hear them. All I could hear was the sound of my own labored breathing.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Extraction 

0215 hours

Picking myself up from the ground, I found my discarded P1, and reloaded both weapons. Then, keeping the right pistol in my hand, I turned to Zimmerman, who had been guarding my tired, weary form from the occasional zombie who shuffled and lurched my way.

"You feeling better?" she asked.

"Enough to walk. Let's go."

My eyes grew heavy despite the pain in my limbs. Only a curative coma would fully heal my overused body. I shook my head, forcing myself awake. The sight of Anderson's headless body, the blood and gore surrounding it, the remains of two unlucky zombies, and that of the Beast was refreshing, in a perverse way.

Zimmerman led the way, of course. I followed, pistol scanning, head swimming, legs turning to jelly. Each step required ever-increasing amounts of willpower, almost becoming heavier by the moment. My brain slowed down, moving at a sluggish pace. I wanted to drop off, fall, sleep, rest…but I could not. Not here.

Somehow, I managed to raise one foot in front of the other. I remembered a trick from my Special Forces training during the many long forced marches: always try to put one foot in front of the other. If you can do that, then you can surely move the other foot, even just by a little bit. Eventually, you start to believe that yes, you can actually live through it, and since there's no way out but through, you cannot give up at this stage.

And then, when you repeat a lie long enough and loud enough, it becomes the truth, no matter what parents would say.

Before I realized what was happening to me, I found myself in the stairwell on the other end of the room. The two of us started to climb up the final two flights of steps.

"I set booby traps on the staircases of the first floors of both stairwells," Zimmerman informed me. "If you hear any explosions from downstairs, don't be alarmed."

"So…you're the one who blew up the staircase in the basement?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"So, you hindered my team's progress."

"What d'you mean?"

"Someone blew up the staircases in first floor of the stairwells…"

"…Oh. Okay…"

Somehow, we reached the top of the stairs, ending in a single metal door. Zimmerman opened it, and we both stepped through.

There were a couple of zombies here, one dressed in military uniform, the other in civilian attire. Raising my weak arms, I aimed at the closer of the two, and fired a double-tap. Both rounds entered its head, shattering it in bolts of red and grey. Zimmerman took care of the other.

I inspected the corpses. Mine was clearly dead, but the other wasn't. Zimmerman's shots had entered its chest and neck, but not the head. I corrected this aberration with two bullets to the head.

Messy, but all too necessary. We didn't need it coming back from the dead. I got to my feet.

Suddenly, a massive explosion erupted from the front of the hospital. The floor rumbled and shook under my boots, shaking with the foundations of the building. Glass windows all around us shattered, blown out by the overpressure exerted on them.

Zimmerman and I ran to the edge of the roof, peering down.

A man was lying on the streets below us. Several zombies lay on the road, probably dead. He gathered his wits together, forcing himself up to his feet.

There was only one route for him: through an alleyway that led to the backdoor of the Raccoon City Clock Tower. Both ends of the road below us had been blocked off by blue police barricades. The one on the left, straining and bulging in a convex manner, halted a mob of zombies, now moving restlessly, having abandoned an attempt to break the barricades. The one on the right was intact, and apparently had not been disturbed.

The man started to walk away. Zimmerman took aim at the figure.

"Don't," I said, lowering her carbine.

"Why? Didn't you see his gear? He's working for Umbrella."

I shook my head. "He's unarmed, and by himself. How long can he survive in Raccoon City? Not for very long, I assure you. Either the monsters or the US Army will get him eventually: no need to waste ammo on him."

"He could be Nikolai Ginovaef, the other supervisor in the building."

"I don't think so."

"How do you know?"

I stared into her blue eyes, wondering what to say.

"I don't," I finally decided.

"Heh." She turned away, looking for the mercenary. He wasn't there, of course. I knew that before she whispered "Shit" under her breath.

"He's gone?"

"Yeah."

"Figured."

I looked at the sky. It was still as black as the cloak of the Grim Reaper, as black as black could ever be. Lighter clouds flowed and covered the sky, obscuring it from people below. Many were shaded purple from the remaining street lamps and lights. However, here and there, several bright stars twinkled and glittered, diamonds in the sky, defying the brightest lights below.

My ears registered a faint, yet distinct _whup-whup-whup_ to my right. I recognized the sound: it was that of the UH-1H Iroquois, better known as the Huey. Its aural signature is unique, loud and sharp and proud, befitting its status as the first general-purpose helicopter in the United States military, its lineage dating to Vietnam.

I turned. A black shape appeared in the air, moving swiftly towards us. Slowly, it resolved into a vague, helicopter-like figure, darker than the night sky. It swooped towards us, having no clear landing zone.

Until now. Zimmerman held a military-issue flashlight in her hands, and was directing the helicopter to us with timed flashes, aimed not at the cockpit, but at the sky. That way, she wouldn't blind the incoming pilots, who had to be wearing night vision goggles or consulting image intensifiers mounted in the Huey's frame.

The helicopter slowed and flared, approaching us as it approached the roof, its rotor noise growing louder and louder. Its rotor wash swept over my body, nearly knowing me over. I crouched, lowering my center of gravity, letting the artificial wind pass over and around me.

The Huey stopped, and hovered in mid air, about fifty meters away from us. It rotated, exposing its right side. Its cargo doors were open; a standing figure in the frame waved us to it.

We needed no further encouragement. Bracing myself against the rotor wash, I hauled myself over to the extraction chopper, forcing myself to move this one last time. Step by agonizing, tiring, weary, difficult step, I walked towards it, easily overtaken by Zimmerman.

"Come on!" she called from the cargo compartment, her words whipped and diffused by the wind.

As soon as I was in range, both she and a member of the flight crew extended their hands. I took them, and forced myself into the chopper with their assistance. They pulled me into a sitting position on the Huey's floor. I propped myself against the thin metal wall of the helicopter, stretching my legs, briefly aware that the absence of seats meant that I had to fasten myself to something or risk sliding away in high-risk maneuvers.

The extraction helicopter lifted off, and into the night sky. I started to slide on the metal floor.

Normally, I would stretch myself out on cargo on the floor. But, the compartment was empty. Fortunately, someone had provided leather straps for us, fastened into some ringlets on the floor. I couldn't give a flying fuck about their origins now that we were safe. Grabbing one, I planted myself on the floor near it and another strap, and fashioned some sort of makeshift brace around my waist and hips. Zimmerman followed my lead.

"Are you okay!" the figure, shouting above the rotor noise. I turned to him, nodding. He was dressed in a flight suit, probably the crew chief of the helicopter.

"Good! Mr. Trent sends his regards! We're headed for a secure facility about two miles away from Raccoon City!"

I nodded again, securing myself in place. Seats could be fitted into a Huey…but I guessed that two people didn't justify their use. Besides, they faced the outside world, and were sort of dangerous if the operators were tired, or if there was a threat of airborne attack…or if things had to be rushed.

"The US Army lied! The President has authorized the destruction of Raccoon City. At dawn, a squadron of Minuteman III missiles, fitted with conventional warheads, will be fired on the city to sanitize it! Count yourself lucky!"

I did. The military lies and lies and lies only to the men on the ground. We were effectively abandoning this city, leaving behind any survivors of the outbreak. They would have to make it out by themselves…if they could. If not, death awaited them, and they wouldn't even know.

I briefly wondered about the Umbrella mercenary Zimmerman had almost killed. Something told me he would survive the outbreak. Who knows, maybe we might even meet.

Only time would tell.

Lying down, I closed my eyes, surrendering to the healing darkness.

The End 

Final Author's Note: That mercenary is Carlos Oliviera. The explosion that preceded his cameo came from the bomb planted in the lobby, after he synthesizes the cure for the T-Virus. There are other events in Resident Evils 2, 3, and Outbreak that coincide with those in this story, though the characters never actually meet each other. These events are subtle, and require some thinking to locate. See if you can find all of them!

Announcement: I hereby declare my retirement from While I'd love to continue writing, circumstances determine otherwise. I have other commitments at and I intend to finish writing those stories first. Two years from now, I'll be drafted into the military, and I intend to finish all of my stories until then…and I still have to study for my 'A' levels, before joining the armed forces. After the military…who knows, I might even take up writing fanfiction again. Until then, goodbye, and good night.


End file.
